The Rev. Belle Mickelson received the $25,000 Purpose Prize on Wednesday evening, Feb. 10 at a gala event at San Francisco’s Jazz Center. Dancing with the Spirit staff members — the Rev. Trimble Gilbert, Josephine Malemute, and Mike Mickelson flew in from Alaska to be with her when she accepted this award and to provide Athabascan Indian fiddle music for the 500 attendees at the sold-out Encore.org leadership conference.
The Purpose Prize is an Encore.org program designed to celebrate the achievements of people over 60 who are using their retirement years to create innovative solutions to difficult social issues — giving back to their communities and the world. The Rev. Belle Mickelson is one of six national winners and the first Alaskan to win this prestigious award.
Over the past 10 years, Mickelson has developed a school music camp program called Dancing with the Sprit that has traveled to 30 Alaskan Native villages — most of them many times — in an effort to encourage healthy living and maintain Native culture, language and traditions by connecting elders and youth through music. These camps’ goals are to use music and dancing to prevent suicide, drug and alcohol abuse.
The Dancing with the Spirit staff arrives in remote Alaskan villages with a planeload of guitars and fiddles and a color coded method of teaching that allows all the kids to be playing for a community concert and dance by the end of the week.
