Connections to Culture: Program enhances lives of Alaska Native Elders
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Last year, Providence Alaska provided a $30,000 community investment grant to the Alaska Native Heritage Center to help enhance the lives of Alaska Native Elders. The grant is aimed at improving mental and physical health within this community by offering workshops, recording oral history stories and connecting – or reconnecting – Elders to their cultures.
In the spring of 2025, the program had just begun its launch, offering such classes as traditional sewing and weaving and drum-making, said Crystalyn Lemieux, Unguwat program manager at Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC).
“We want to provide the tools and the space to help them reconnect with their culture and cultural identity,” Crystalyn said. “When you feel a sense of connectedness and belonging, it is a very strong protective factor for suicide prevention and substance-use prevention. We really believe culture is prevention.”
In its early stages, Crystalyn said ANHC has been able to work with two partners – Q’et’en Qenq’a Providence House and Southcentral Foundation – and is also developing programs for people who are housed through Cook Inlet Housing Authority. The programs ANHC offers, she said, are complementary to the important work these three agencies focus on: securely housing and supporting Elders experiencing homelessness or other living-condition challenges.
“We are not trying to recreate a senior citizen program,” Crystalyn stresses. “We are trying to provide cultural programming so that when these places are already worked to the max, we can work with them, and we find out what the Elders want and what the facility is willing to let us do. If they are willing to provide a space, we come in with a master artist and the supplies and coordinate the program.”
Crystalyn said she is already receiving positive feedback from this Providence-supported program and sees it as a way to enhance not just the lives of Alaska Native Elders, but also of the community as a whole.
I think that it’s always good to reconnect someone to their culture, because what’s good for indigenous cultures is good for everyone,” she said. “It makes this a better place to live.”