On June 22, 2015, the Oglala Lakota Nation had a Ground Breaking Celebration for their Regenerative Community Development program.
Beginning in 2010, Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation coordinated a regional planning process for the Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation through the inaugural grant of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Program.
This regional plan is called Oyate Omniciye (Oglala Lakota Plan), and has been adopted by two successive tribal councils at this time.
The Thunder Valley community is the first implementation project of the Model Community Development initiative. The goal of this initiative is to create sustainable and interconnected communities that provide better housing, places for business to thrive and a healthy supportive environment for youth, elderly and families.
Model communities are living laboratories to build skills, knowledge and capacity for residents. This project will explore and refine new ways of living that build on traditional Lakota values to develop innovative, homegrown Native solutions to a variety of challenges.