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Gather resources about the MMIW crisis.
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Visit our Gofundme. Help us send flowers to victims of the MMIW crisis, regional search organizers, and community leaders taking preventative action.
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Your organization’s support is imperative. Become a sponsor by sending your pledge to sendflowersto@thewildmother.com.
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Join our team of volunteers who are working on SendFlowersToMMIW. Fill out this form to express your interest in organizing in the movement.
Throughout history, the MMIW has plagued Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. Mothers, daughters, aunts, and wives go missing every day through human trafficking, kidnapping, and in the worst cases, murder. Sadly, their cases go largely uninvestigated by the FBI because the federal government does not have jurisdiction on tribal lands. Simultaneously, tribal sovereignty is limited, creating limitations to investigations in these cases. This leaves families and community members to organize their own searches while the missing and murdered toll increases.
Community-led search parties also provide grief services and preventative care within the community, while some precious loved ones are never found. As relatives grieve or continue to search, they are left to wonder what happened to their family members. One community member remarked that the mothers of these missing and murdered women are left with “no courtroom and no grave” to visit as they seek answers & justice.
For this and many other reasons, The Wild Mother is devoting our next SendFlowersTo project to the MMIW crisis in hopes of providing a place for victims’ families to connect with the larger community in their grief. In addition, we hope to bring healing to the healers—those working with "boots on the ground" of this crisis. Lastly, we will provide touch points between a broad community (non Native) and policy makers, urging them to address the crisis that effects so many of our neighbors.
Our team of sisters hopes to acknowledge the families who are still looking for their loved ones while we memorialize the women whose lives were taken. We will do all this through an incredible display of flowers.
This May, The Wild Mother embarks on our annual SendFlowersTo project surrounding MMIW awareness day, May 5th. SendFlowersToMMIW will be installed at First American’s Museum in Oklahoma City from May 7 to May 9th. On Saturday, May 7th, the museum will host programs free to the public to raise awareness about the MMIW issue. Other collaborations are developing with MMIW and MMIP chapters across Turtle Island. Thought leaders, organizers, political activists, and those doing preventative work are joining this SendFlowersToMMIW project to illuminate, educate, honor victims and memorialize the lost.
FAQs
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The three sisters of The Wild Mother are heartbroken with our Indigenous communities regarding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, girls, trans, and 2 Spirit relatives. This is an ongoing problem where sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking, and fatal crimes against Indigenous Women and Femmes occur at high rates. Meanwhile federal and local policies are in place to limit tribal sovereignty that would seek to protect our sisters. This uniquely plagues Indigenous spaces and remains an issue that seems to be hidden in plain sight, while families of these victims suffer from not knowing how their relatives vanished from familiar spaces. Simultaneously, because of limited tribal sovereignty to investigate these crimes, every-day people pull their resources—free time, extra income, donated meeting spaces, and sheer will—to organize search parties for missing women, rehabilitate broken families, and engage in the preventative work necessary to keep our communities safe.
In an effort to amplify the stories of our Indigenous relatives who suffer as victims of the MMIW crisis, we have launched the SendFlowersToMMIW campaign to accomplish four major goals:
To use floral art as medicine, providing space for a community to gather, grieve, memorialize, and heal. Our site-specific installation can be viewed at First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, May 7-9, 2022.
To issue healing for the healers—those on the frontlines—holding up their arms as they bear the weight of the movement.
To amplify knowledge bearers, elders, policy makers, and MMIW chapters throughout our state.
To expose and confront the policy issues that limit tribal sovereignty at the expense of Indigenous women.
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We’ve positioned our entire business as a legacy project—an opportunity to heal our lineage forwards and backwards, to send honor to our ancestors whose experiences in North America were tragic and to build a world for our future descendants that is more beautiful, more equitable, and more just. #SendFlowersToMMIW is a humbling opportunity to offer medicine to tragic history right here on Turtle Island.
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Great question! The Installations we’ve planned are as follows:
The Circle—a floral installation which will be the centerpiece of dance, song, and other medicine poured out for our stolen sisters and relatives who are grieving their void.
Homma Yakni—an immersive and interactive floral installation which will bring humanity to MMIW statics of North America.
Our Mothers—an installation honoring the first Mother, our mothers, aunties, sisters, friends, and neighbors.
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This is a crowd-funded project. Our most prominent need is for monetary and in-kind donations. Donate to our gofundme to support floral artists who will voluntarily design large scale floral installations during this year's commemorative ceremonies & events. Head to https://www.gofundme.com/f/sendflowerstommiw
Share the GoFundMe link with your friends and help us raise awareness for this project.
Participate in #SendFlowersToMMIW by sharing an original art piece, design, or performance to your social media platform using the hashtags: #sendflowerstommiw #sendflowerstommiwg2s #artismedicine #twmfloralstories
If you would like to partner with our team through sponsorship, please contact our team at sendflowersto@thewildmother.com.
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We estimate the total value of the outpouring in Oklahoma City to be $85K, but we hope to offset these costs through in-kind donations. We will use the money donated through our GoFundMe or through sponsorships to create an MMIW reader; support efforts to educate policy makers on this crisis through an informative reception; provide thoughtful hospitality for volunteers, purchase flowers that have not been donated, and to care for MMIW chapter organizers who work tirelessly.
If you do not wish to donate via the GoFundMe links we’ve provided, you can sponsor us via one of the following tiers. All sponsors will be listed & visibly published. All donations are tax deductible via The James and Elnora Boykin Arts and Culture Foundation. Please be sure to provide contact information to receive donation documentation.
Tier One: $7000
Tier Two: $5000
Tier Three: $3000
Tier Four: $1500
Gofundme: $Any
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We need money to support our team of volunteers while in Tulsa.
We need Indigenous artists to submit work that will be compiled in an educational reader about MMIW.
We need volunteers to give their time to our fundraising efforts.
We need volunteers to support MMIW chapters on May 5th at the Oklahoma State Capitol for MMIW Awareness Day.
We need fresh flowers from farmers and wholesalers.
We need mechanics for large scale installations.
We need a welder or woodworker to create solid structures for our installations.
We need supplies and tools for floral design.
We need snacks, water, and other hospitality items for our volunteers.
We need a venue to host our volunteer appreciation dinner, The Strawberry Dinner.
We need donated catering for our volunteer appreciation dinner, The Strawberry Dinner.
If you are able to donate any of these items (or have other resources you would like to share) please email at sendflowersto@thewildmother.com.
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Floral that can be repurposed after the events will be collected and used in hand tied bouquets or recycled appropriately.
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We’d love to know what you would like to offer to our team! Please send an email to sendflowersto@thewildmother.com.
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The Wild Mother and volunteers will install #SendFlowersToMMIW floral to be viewed, May 7-9 at Oklahoma City’s First Americans Museum. Please follow along on our social media platforms to learn more as we share.
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Abolutely! Please connect us to like minded and actively antiracist florists via email: sendflowersto@thewildmother.com
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There are a handful of volunteer roles that we have yet to fill, especially our fundraising team. If you believe that you would be an asset to our team, please fill out this form to let us know more about yourself.
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Yes, of course! We welcome opportunities to discuss our vision for #SendFlowersToMMIW and to discuss the history and impact of this crisis on the Native community. Please reach out to us at sendflowersto@thewildmother.
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That’s amazing! We can’t wait to see what you create to dedicate to the victims of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, girls, trans, and 2 Spirit relatives.
It’s simple, really. We encourage you to create an art piece, performance, or design that is specifically dedicated to MMIW and MMIP. Join the movement by posting a photo of that piece on your social platform(s), using the hashtags: #sendflowerstommiw #sendflowerstommiwg2s #artismedicine #twmfloralstories. Follow these hashtags to engage with other creatives who participate in using their art as medicine.
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Yes! For years, our sister-team has been in search of a beautiful intersection between Art and Activism. #SendFlowersTo naturally followed our desire to acknowledge, educate, and heal from ongoing and historic oppression that marginalized communities experience daily. We hope this hashtag will be useful for future outpourings of love, opportunities to educate about hidden histories, and moments to offer Art to communities in need of medicine.
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Hi there! Nice to meet you. Lauren, Leah and Callie are the Afro-Indigenous sisters, owners, and operators of The Wild Mother Creative Studio. Our team, along with a collective of faithful others have worked tirelessly to realize the outpouring of Art as medicine for the victims of MMIW and MMIP.
While SendFlowersToMMIW is our original concept, we are open-handed and grateful to the many collaborations that have formed (and will continue to form) around this work. In particular, Oklahoma City’s First Americans Museum (FAM) has welcomed us as a site for our installations. Along with their teams and the local MMIW/MMIP organizations in Oklahoma and surrounding regions, Mother’s Day weekend at FAM will be one to remember.
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In our studio, this phrase has served as a mantra, an encouragement, a reminder, instruction, and an invitation. Only recently have we begun sharing it publicly. We believe this profound truth and the depths of its meaning, and when we speak it, it's with a posture of humility and service. As you work with the #SendFlowerstoMMIW team, we encourage you to adopt this posture.
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The Wild Mother Creative Studio humbly approached leadership at First Americans Museum with our original idea for a series of installations which would honor victims of MMIW and MMIP and memorials of sisters we’ve lost. After submitting a proposal, our friends at FAM welcomed and approved our work. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our beloved Indigenous community, in partnership with many brilliant Native movers and shakers on Turtle Island.
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If you are a creative small business owner or brand, please learn about The Wild Mother’s most recent course Lay of the Land: Building Affirming, Equitable, and Just Brands.
If you are not an artist or small business owner and would like to engage a more traditional DEI offering, our team also created The Conversation Workshops, a more generic, self-paced antiracism course designed to provide a conversation style for confronting racism when you notice it happening around or to you.
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Simply put, sovereignty is full and complete power over what is rightfully yours. This includes responsible stewardship over land, food, governmental, religious, cultural etc. In modern conversations about Indigenous sovereignty on Turtle Island, leaders hold hope to achieve full sovereignty once again.
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It is our belief that you cannot claim to care for your community without first knowing the context for the land where you reside, work, build wealth, nurture a family, vacation, and play. If you live anywhere in North America, you are on Native land, the original homelands of people who were either removed from their territories, massacred, or systemically & systematically oppressed under the weight of an “American Dream.” Despite such efforts, we’re still here. This truth is the backdrop for every part of your daily life.
There has been an attempt to erase the stories of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island. Modern education provides a myth of American Identity that misrepresents Native communities and behaves as if Western settler contact initiated civilization on this soil. This history believes that all arenas of life, such as systems of government, kinship, agriculture, spirituality, dress, trade, food, language, and other structures did not exist before colonization. This simply is not the case and learning the truth only enhances one's perspective.
Native communities and culture have not disappeared, though threats against us—via boarding schools, genocide, broken treaties, removal from homelands, even MMIW, and other means—have attempted to hide and suppress Native voices.
Learn our stories as an act of resistance to white supremacy and the damage colonization has done.
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Chances are you were a victim of the teaching of revisionist history which exists to sterilize the telling of actual events as they happened, especially if the truth does not favor or flatter those in power. If you were among the hundreds of millions who have received a mainstream education in North America, there’s a slim chance you received a historically accurate education on the original keepers of Turtle Island. This means you were probably not educated on the genocide our community experienced as settlers stole sovereign lands. As we continue to educate on the MMIW crisis, we encourage you to think on just how tethered the violence of settler contact is to our stolen sisters. As you re-learn, we encourage you to observe your emotions, trading apathy for engagement; shame for honor; and doubt for belief.
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Toward the health and wellness of our team and those in the community at large, we will continue to employ these safety measures:
The Wild Mother Creative Studio strongly suggests all designers affiliated with #SendFlowersToMMIW are vaccinated and boosted.
Masks will be worn in mandated places.
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We sure will try! Please send your question to sendflowersto@thewildmother.com.
Art is Medicine
As florists, we have the unique opportunity to create for people during the most significant moments of their lives—whether celebrating a milestone or grieving a loss. We’ve learned the power of a handsome floral design, created in love, to send the most sincere sentiments.
Sending flowers is our human tradition.
We believe it is important that these people, places, and events are not overlooked, hidden by a blanket of time, politics, or insensitivity. Our team at The Wild Mother hopes to find ways to celebrate, remember, honor, grieve, and educate through our floral medium.
Sending flowers is our human tradition.
But, geographical distance and lack of awareness may make it hard to know where or how to send floral sentiments. In light of this, we have constructed a plan to make sending flowers simple for anyone—floral novices and the professional alike. Here’s how this works.
Stay connected with The Wild Mother for announcements about the next #SendFlowersTo project. Read about the people and places we want to shower with love and acknowledgement.
Plan to design (or purchase from your local florist) a floral arrangement.
Post a photo of the finished product with the hashtag #SendlFowersTo and any other accompanying hashtag The Wild Mother announces for that project.
In your post, talk about your reason for sending flowers!
Consider how healing art is. Notice that in creating and sharing you have also exercised empathy and honor.
We hope you’ll work alongside us to push against an increasingly desensitized world that seems to have forgotten how to grieve, celebrate, or share love without selfish motive or return.
#SendFlowersTo is a vehicle to express grief and lament toward those grieving, but this project is also a way to acknowledge losses and learn to heal where you are.
Read more
Featured
Before viewing The Wild Mother’s public installations at First Americans Museum on May 7, 2022, you’re invited to acquaint yourself with the MMIW crisis and the movement that responded to our missing and murdered relatives.