A baby stroller is parked outside. A vase of flowers rests in the middle of the dining table. The smell of burning sage lingers in the living room.
It's been awhile since the aging, two-story house along Sibley Memorial Highway in Mendota, the meeting center of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community, has been this homey.
Cultural chairman Jim Anderson, who moved in with his wife and 2-year-old daughter in February in protest of plans to turn the property into a parking lot, said things are on the upswing.
Earlier this year, the Mendota Dakota community was given notice that it had to leave the house by the end of March so the property could be sold and turned into a restaurant parking lot. However, the property owner recently extended the time the group could rent the house. Plus, a potential benefactor has stepped forward to try to help the group secure a nearby property.
"We don't need to be about confrontation. We don't win when we fight," Anderson said, sitting in his kitchen as his young daughter ran about and his wife washed dishes.
Instead, spreading public awareness about the group's situation may have been enough to help, he said.
The Mendota Dakota had been struggling to pay the rent for quite some time. In recent years, the group relied on a grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation, but it was denied additional funds last year.
Unlike the nearby Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Mendota Dakota isn't acknowledged by the federal government as a tribe, which would make the group eligible for funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
