PINE RIDGE, S.D. — The town of Whiteclay in Nebraska is just a mile south of the Pine Ridge Reservation, that over the years has been ravaged by alcohol abuse. In an effort to reverse that, the Whiteclay makerspace is now providing jobs and resources for native artists.
Whiteclay was once just a town of bars. A wild west community where people from neighboring towns would go for alcohol, but hat changed four years ago. The liquor stores were shut down to make way for new businesses.
“There’s are a lot of people that live out in the country, they would come and they would buy alcohol,” said makerspace assistant, Nadine Morrison. “It was just a alcohol town, and one of the biggest improvements is those bars are now gone, and the people on the streets are no longer there.”
Just over half of native households on Pine Ridge depend on home-based enterprises for…
