Sweetwater Community Firewood & Wood Pellet Project

With the help of community volunteers and family members, 150 forty-pound bags of wood pellets were divided and delivered to 12 elders and 100 cords of firewood were separated and dispersed to 94 elders and families as most of their homes are heated solely by fireplaces or woodburning stoves.

The project started in early March as Lovena & Woody Lee of the Sweetwater Chapter offered to be the project leaders and concluded in mid-July. This was a labor of love, sweat and persistence in delivering this much needed fuel to elders and families despite bad roads, weather, equipment failures and soaring fuel prices.

The project funding was provided by generous grants from the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation and American Express. We are grateful to the Deer Hill Foundation which paid for fuel costs and provided student volunteers to help with the deliveries. A “shout out” goes to Wood Lumber out of Cortez, Colorado, for cutting, splitting and bundling the firewood for over a dozen pick-up days throughout the project. The Grand Prize goes to Lovena & Woody Lee for making this possible out of the goodness of their hearts and the care for those in their community who are most isolated and in need.

Navajo Santa would not be able to succeed in providing our humanitarian programs without the dedicated help of our Navajo liaisons in the various communities we serve.

A’he’hee