Steyer family preps for annual Arizona trip

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

For the fifth consecutive year, a local family, along with local donors and local volunteers are doing their part to help those in need on the other side of the country.

The annual journey from Van Wert to the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation in Tuba City, Arizona, was born during the COVID-19 year of 2020, when Van Wert resident Val Steyer watched a segment on the “Today” show. She explained the Navajo president was on the show begging for help and noted the tribe wouldn’t receive stimulus checks. Nearly everything on the reservation, including casinos that employed a number of Native Americans, had been shut down by the pandemic. Steyer also learned that 40 percent of residents on the reservation were without running water.

“In my brain I was like ‘how can we help them’ so I posted on Facebook and asked if anybody would donate water and that I would find a way to get it there,” Steyer said.

She called the Today show to get contact information for the Navajo Nation but it was to no avail, as no one returned her calls. She then went online seeking the information and found a number for a Baptist church recently started on the reservation by Sheena Ewers, a full-blooded Navajo woman, and her husband, Brandon, and called them to see if they would take the items, an offer that was graciously accepted. Despite the tough times caused by COVID, the donations flowed in and Steyer and her family made plans to take them more than 1,600 miles to the reservation in the northern portion of Arizona.

“In our first year, we ended up taking 16,000 pounds of food, water, formula and other items,” she said. “We took a super-sized U-Haul and my husband (Nick) drove it.”

Transporting those items and food and water proved to be quite a challenge so after the first year, Steyer spoke again with the church founders to learn what else was needed on the reservation and was told backpacks and school supplies.

“On the Navajo reservation there are no truancy laws, so if they don’t have a backpack and school supplies they just don’t go to school,” she said. “The nearest town is Flagstaff and people in the tribe in Tuba City, Arizona – their vehicles are not going to make that far, and there’s only a Dollar General in town (Tuba City), so we decided this would be our mission.”

“The first two years they didn’t allow us on the reservation, but last year they allowed us on the reservation and we actually do free haircuts too,” Steyer continued, while noting she’s a hairdresser. “We do back-to-school haircuts and then we hand out backpacks. Last year we did 439 backpacks and this year’s we’re doing 500.”

Roughly two dozen volunteers gathered at the Steyer home on Monday to stuff backpacks full of school supplies. It was a literal outdoor assembly line with essentials such as paper, notebooks, pencils and more. The group was efficient and was able to fill the backpacks in just under two hours.

“Most of the volunteers are from Merry Widows of Van Wert County and Trinity Global Church,” Steyer explained. “My neighbor drove by watching us pack last year and she went to her church and told them what we did and they gave me $250 for gas after we had packed up. I started going to their “Generations” group to speak to them and they are and they are our biggest helper. First United Methodist Church also helps out every single year.”

Steyer also thanked Eric McCracken at Lee Kinstle Sales & Service for donating the use of a cab for the trip, as well as Saratoga Chips in Fort Wayne for donating many boxes in which the backpacks are packed into for the journey, along with packing tape and potato chips. In addition, all of the school supplies and backpacks were donated by local residents, along with gloves and hats donated by Trinity Global.

Steyer and her two daughters plans to leave July 23 and she said the trip will take three days. They’ll pass out the filled backpacks on the morning of July 26.

“We go every year, it’s kind of a girls’ mission trip,” she said with a chuckle.