Dear Dads and Guides,
As summer comes to a close and as families make the shift back to school and work schedules, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your leadership and for setting aside the time to invest in your relationship with your child(ren) through Y Guides.
I am excited to serve as your Chief of the Arapahoe Nation this coming year. My wife, Rainbow Princess, went through Y Guides with her father, Running Deer, and I’m thrilled my children are sharing in the experience. My oldest two daughters, Violet Butterfly and Sparking Snowball, are now in Trailblazers and my son will be a first-year next year.
This past year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Y Guides, a program dedicated to the relationship between fathers and their sons and daughters, with a firm foundation in the value of fathers teaching and passing life lessons along to their children.
I am grateful to Chief Crawling Bear (Boss Poe) and the 49 previous chiefs who have shepherded this program since its founding in 1968 to the most distinguished and largest Y Guides program in the nation. We are all part of something larger than ourselves.
I invite you and your child(ren) to join me, my children, the Nation’s Officers, the Long Bow Council, and the Y Guides staff as active stewards of this program.
Lastly, thank you for your generous support of #WeBuildPeople. Last year your tribe’s gifts helped raise more than $155,000 to support programs like Camp High Hopes over the summer. We’ll be in touch with more details soon, but thank you for your active participation in Y Guides and modeling for your child(ren) what leadership in our community looks like.
See you at Fall Outing!
With gratitude,
Chief Flying Squirrel
Brian Etheridge
@EtheridgeBrian