Welcome Home: Elder Exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont - City of Longmont
Dozens of participants, of the March 2025 Elder Exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont, pose for a photo in the Longmont Senior Center.

Welcome Home: Elder Exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont

The City of Longmont’s Senior Center has launched an Elder Exchange program with the Northern Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Indian Reservation. In this first-of-its-kind program, elders from both communities meet to honor, preserve and amplify elder wisdom across Native and non-Native cultures and communities. This program builds upon the historic Sister Cities relationship formed between the City of Longmont and the Northern Arapaho in 2021.

 

The Elder Exchange launched the week of March 19-22, 2025 when 16 Northern Arapaho elders, plus their family members, visited Longmont. The visitors met with Longmont elders and participated in a variety of group events, including:

 

  • A “Welcome Home” dinner at the Longmont Museum
  • A visit of the History Colorado Center exhibit “The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever”
  • Activities at the Longmont Senior Center including quilting, loteria, and crafts
  • A field trip to the Denver March Powwow

 

In exchange, a group of Longmont seniors plan to visit the Wind River Reservation in July. Among the tentative activities planned for that visit include raising a teepee, attending a powwow, experiencing traditional foods and visiting the Wind River Experience Museum and the Tribal Historic Preservation Center.

 

The intention of the program is to build long-lasting relationships between elders and families of both communities. City of Longmont communications staff and Longmont Public Media staff are documenting the exchange and plan to share a short video as part of the City’s National Native American Heritage Month observances in November.

 

“We feel extremely honored to be able to help build these powerful and important connections,” said Senior Services Manager Ronnie Maynes. “We hope to promote healing and reconciliation by acknowledging past traumas – both personal and historical – and to highlight the hopes we share for our communities and children.”

 

For more information about the exchange, please contact Senior Services Manager Ronnie Maynes at 303-651-8411.

Dozens of people are seated in the Longmont Museum atrium as part of the elder exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont Three people visit a Museum exhibit as part of the elder exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont Two women work together on a quilt as part of the elder exchange between the Northern Arapaho and the City of Longmont
search