Red Lake Wellness Summit Focuses On Healthy Relationships & Fighting Opioid Crisis

“Buy Into Greatness” was the quote of the day at this year’s Wellness Summit in Red Lake at the 7 Clans Casino. This quote led into other discussions about healthy relationships and fighting the opioid crisis, and the theme of the evening was “Together We Can Make Change.”

“This is an illness that we can overcome by working together and stopping the drugs that are coming to destroy our families,” says Darrell G. Seki, Sr., Red Lake Tribal Chairman.

The day started with a prayer and a few drum songs. Then, speakers came up to share words of motivation.

“This is all about our future generations to stop this epidemic,” says Seki, Sr.

The event’s main speakers were married couple Chance and Tyler Rush, who gave a workshop about healthy relationships. They travel all over the United States to work with different tribes.

“One thing I love about the Red Lake community is they’re really welcoming and they want to be teachers. They want to teach the outside world about Ojibwe language, about Anishinaabe ways,” says Chance.

The summit started bright and early at 9 in the morning. At first, there was a lot of talk about the opioid crisis and how to address it, then the conversation shifted into fostering relationships and how to make the community stronger.

“You want to have a structure because I believe that everybody in this world has to have a support system,” says Chance.

“How do you identity if this is just a situation we’re having arguments? Can we work through this? How do we work through this? Or am I in something that is really unhealthy?” says Tyler.

Audience participation was incorporated in many of the presentations. There were also booths set up outside the event center that offered different services and even employment opportunities to attendees. Overall, it was a promising opening day for this year’s summit.

“We have to work together. We have a battle on our hands, but we can do it,” says Seki, Sr.

The summit will run from 9 AM Thursday until this Friday at noon. Anyone is welcome to attend.