Growing Support for Families Affected by Missing and Murdered Native Americans

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A year ago, the Montana Community Foundation teamed up with the Blackfeet Tribe to create the Snowbird Fund, a first-of-its-kind fund that provides immediate cash assistance to families and friends of missing and murdered Native American people.

Since then, the fund has doubled its cash amount and increased its funding capacity, all during a pandemic and tough economic times, per the foundation's blog.

The Snowbird Fund provides up to $1,000 to families and friends searching for their missing loved ones, covering anything from gas money, meals, hotel stays, cell phone payments, tools, metal detectors, and drones, hosting a community vigil, and conducting a targeted awareness campaign, the blog notes.

"But this cancer continues to spread, and routinely we learn about another missing indigenous person whose loved ones are bereft and left to search for them and find answers to their disappearance," the foundation's blog states.

Native Americans are four times more likely to go missing than non-native residents, the Washington Post reports.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 1,000 Native Americans are murdered or missing every year, and more than half of them go missing after being sexually or physically abused.

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