MVSKOKE RESERVATION – S.A.C.R.E.D. Inc. is an organization founded by Mvskoke citizens to help better understand the community needs in the Southern Region of the Mvskoke Reservation and beyond. It stands for Support Action, Community Response, Education Discussions, and was cofounded by Mvskoke citizen Mackenzie Roberts. The aim of SACRED Inc. is to engage on the community level and reconnect people to each other, culture, and land and food practices, whether you live on or off the Mvskoke Reservation.
During a 2024 Native Organizers Alliance Training in Seattle that focused on Native organizing, community organizing, mobilization, and election mobilization, Roberts’ community-building spark ignited.
“That is where I kind of got a little bit of a taste of community organizing, mobilization, and campaign building,” Roberts said. That is also when she told her friends they needed to learn how to organize a community.
Then, in 2025, Roberts and her friend Jordan Harmon (Mvskoke) worked on a community campaign opposing data centers on the reservation. The idea for SACRED began to take shape as citizens sought guidance on how to engage in community action. Specifically, citizens needed direction on how to make public comments at a meeting and on where to start when navigating the channels to get things done.
Also, Roberts had many friends who are off the reservation and Mvskoke citizens who wanted to feel connected with the Mvskoke community. “Whenever I left my community to go to college, I was also really disconnected from the community, our culture, and everything else. It was really hard on me, and now a lot of my friends are in California,” Roberts said.
SACRED hosts in-person classes and also uses virtual meetings to connect. “On Zoom, we can come together for like, a cooking class or just a talking circle,” Roberts said.
“One of our very first events was a collaborative cvto hakv and ghost bread-making class with CMN extension and Wetumka Indian community. It was at the Wetumka Indian community center on February 22nd 2025. I think we had about 35 participants there,” Roberts said.
SACRED hosted a vpvtvkv (cowboy bread) virtual class and posted it on the Muscogee Facebook groups. They had about 160 people register instantly, and that is when they noticed the need, Roberts added. SACRED is open to any Mvskoke citizen who wants to join, and it is also meant to help other Mvskoke citizens.
For meetings and activities, they have started biweekly steering committee meetings to keep the organization running. They are hoping to do a second vpvtvkv class or a grape dumpling class- depending on funding, they hope to host quarterly activities.
The grassroots organization has 7 board members: TCFO, Co-Founder Summer Chupco-Boyajian (Mvskoke), Sgt. of Arms Hunter Dodson (Cherokee), Board of Secretary Heather Fry (Mvskoke), Board Vice Chair Jordan Harmon (Mvskoke), Steering Committee Chair Madison Matney (Mvskoke), Treasurer Kenna Najera (Mvskoke), Board Chair Cassandra Thompson (Mvskoke), and herself. During each session, board members give an introduction of themselves so everyone knows who is serving them.
Currently, they are working on becoming an official nonprofit organization. When they become a non-profit, Roberts shared, they can do more. They have met people who want to help fund their projects.
“This past year has been absolutely nuts, and so we’ve gotten to meet with a bunch of different people that are really enthusiastic and supportive of SACRED, so that’s one of the reasons why we wanted to hurry up to have our nonprofit status,” Roberts said. “We’re meeting a lot more often, so we’re hoping that we can match the rate that we’re expanding.”
At this time, SACRED is raising $400 in funds and held a bake sale to reach that goal. They plan to put $200 towards their Zoom license so they can continue their Mvskoke Talking Circles and cultural cooking classes. The other $200 will be used to register their organization as a non-profit with the state of Oklahoma.
During their next board meeting, they will review community agreements to begin recruiting volunteers for in-person community projects.
One of the first projects SACRED is planning for is a library card drive. Starting in Henryetta, where Roberts resides, they would host a reading by a Mvskoke author at the local library. The idea is to get Mvskoke citizens and their children registered for library cards. Then, welcome them back to a local community center for food and fellowship.
“It’s not super flashy, but it’s still filling a need and doing it in a very grassroots community-focused style. So hopefully very soon in the next month or so, we’ll be able to start inviting people to volunteer with us and help us grow,” Roberts said.
The organization communicates its progress and decisions to the wider community via email and social media. All of the board members are full-time employees, so each of them has a busy schedule; however, they work things through to get things done.
All of the people who had registered for their virtual vpvtvkv class will be on their email list, and then they will start providing newsletters from there.
Roberts feels that being part of this impact, working alongside the Mvskoke people, and helping other Mvskoke citizens is something she was meant to do.
She spoke of how very privileged she was to be in a community all her life. She says she is from the Yardeka Creek Indian Community Center and serves as its Vice Chair. She attends the Yardeka Indian Baptist Church, and her ceremonial ground is Apekv.
“The reason I’m saying all of this is because a lot of people don’t understand how blessed and how privileged we are. There are so many people who have to make an entire pilgrimage just to be able to access their people. That sense of belonging that they can’t get anywhere else. Because of life outside of the Mvskoke world, they don’t understand being Mvskoke,” Roberts said.
Roberts understands the privilege she holds, and she wants to use that to elevate Mvskoke people.
“Every place that I find myself in a higher position, I want to extend the ladder down. I want to leave the door open behind me so they can come up here with me,” Roberts said.
It was significant for Roberts to hear how appreciative people were when they attended the vpvtvkv class, and to hear Mvskoke citizens say they needed the connection SACRED provides.
Roberts related that some citizens feel they’re not Mvskoke or not Mvskoke enough because they live outside the reservation boundaries. She feels fulfilled because SACRED Inc. helps provide this connection.
“It’s this notion of remembrance. Sometimes they’re like ‘we feel forgotten.’ With this intent, the message we want to convey is that we remember you, we never forgot you, it might have taken us some time, but we’ve always thought about you, and that’s how I felt. That’s how a lot of our board feels,” Roberts said.
“We want to connect our community like that, we want to bridge that.”
She can’t wait to see how far this will grow and how far they can take this. Roberts says it is a lot of hard work; however, none of it is difficult, especially if it’s for the Mvskoke people.
One of the biggest things she hopes she can leave behind is empowerment. Roberts says this is small, but intentional things like the library card drive or the community garden at Yardeka are part of mobilization and community organizing.
“We’ve just been distributing fresh produce directly to the community members, that’s something they can do, and we want to have little toolkits to show people how to get that started. Not just how to get a garden started but how to go about planning work days and what to do about weekly volunteers, quarterly, and so forth,” Roberts said.
“I want people to understand that politics and institutional systems aren’t something that just have to happen to us. It’s something that we are all a part of, and we are all responsible for building a world that we deserve to live in. So I hope that they know that they have the power to build that world that we all deserve,” Roberts said.
Roberts is very appreciative of the board and all the hard work they have done for SACRED.
“They’re all incredibly supportive, they’re all very loving and very committed to each of their respective communities. We’re Mvskoke-led, we’re primarily Mvskoke femme led, and I just wanted it to be known that this is co-founded, this was created by all of us,” Roberts said.
“I know that me and a couple of other people might have had this idea to formally organize, but none of these dreams would have been brought to reality without the people,” Roberts said.
To stay up to date on their activities, you can find them on Facebook at Supportive Action Community Response and Educated Discussion and on their Instagram at Sacred_Inc.
For questions, you can contact Roberts at kenzie@sacredinc.org
