Menu
Pine Point

A warm welcome and work to be found at Creator’s Place in Pine Point, MN

December 2022

Story by Emily Haeg Nguyen
Central, MN

The Ojibwe word Bam’idizowigamig means “a place to support oneself.” Bam’idizowigamig Creator’s Place, located near the White Earth Nation Reservation village of Pine Point, is an up-and-coming facility hoping to help locals find support through manufacturing and artisanry. Once their new central Minnesota building is complete, the work center will offer on-the-job training, jobs and income for Pine Point villagers. 

Partnering with CERTs, the organization recently took action to make the new building more energy efficient. Creator's Place utilized seed grant funds to install spray foam insulation.

“This project is specifically designed to be a well insulated work center for the people of Pine Point. Pine Point Village is a primarily Indigenous Ojibwe village and has one of the highest poverty levels of any area in the United States. Having a well insulated building with in-floor heat will be a real plus to our project.”

- Jean Kruft, Creator’s Place founder

Local newspaper Park Rapids Enterprise recently interviewed Kruft, a non-Indigenous person, about her role in the organization and what’s next.

 

When Kruft’s cousin Albert Koloski unexpectedly left her an inheritance, she knew right away what she would do with it. She purchased land across from the convenience store on PowWow Highway from local resident Butch Smith.

 

“It’s the perfect location, because it’s right across the road from the only gas station and grocery store in the area, where everybody goes,” she said. “It’s not on tribal land, but it’s within walking distance from where people live. Butch is on our board and has worked in corrections. Part of our goal is to employ people who have been incarcerated.”

Read the entire story here.

Kruft estimates Creator’s Place will open its doors in early December. 

“As soon as the heat is on in the building we will be taking applications,” says Kruft. “This grant really got us thinking about being more energy efficient. Without it, I'm not sure we would have afforded spray foam insulation.”

Clean Energy Focus: Energy efficiency with spray foam insulation on walls and roof
Central CERT Seed Grant: $5,000
Other Funds Leveraged: $10,000 from West Central Initiative for Management Trainees, more than $5,000 from Calvary Lutheran Hard Hat Ministry for volunteer labor to build interior walls, and $6,800 from Honor The Earth for appliances for the community kitchen.
Energy Saved Each Year: 3,300 kWh
Money Saved Each Year: $400
People Involved and Reached: 108

ISLe students visiting an outdoors clean energy site
September 2022

MN BIPOC leaders in clean energy cultivate UMN Morris students’ passion

Native Sun Power Development logo
November 2021

Minnesota non-profit lands $6.67 million grant to build new inter-tribal EV charging network

seed grants
January 2022

74 projects receive CERTs 2022 Seed Grants

Sign up for our email newsletter

We encourage reuse and republishing of this story. All Clean Energy Resource Teams stories are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license, meaning you can share and adapt the work as long as you give us credit. We'd also love it if you link back to the original piece. Have questions or want to chat? Drop us a line.