Executive Director

Meredith (she/her) is a proud Waganakising Odawak, mother, and graduate of NCMC and Ferris State University with a background in education leadership. Her career has always focused on serving her tribal communities; 17 years in the areas of environment, education, culture, mental health, and substance abuse with experience as a director within the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians government and the Intertribal Council of Michigan. In addition to being the founder and executive director of Miigwech, she is a small business owner (Native North Tours and Storytelling), had a appointment on the Odawa Economic Affairs Holding Corporation and is a former member the of the Think Babies Michigan executive board. She currently sits on Promote The Vote board.

She considers serving her community the highest honor. Promoting Odawa culture and Mino Bimaadiziwin, the good life, is the legacy she wants to leave for her children and her community members, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Her legacy is to focus on the next Seven Generations growing up supporting each other with love, understanding, and respect. 

Opperations Manager

Bio coming soon

Community Organizer - Upper Peninsula

Waabanokiizhick is beaver clan Agokwe, descending from Zhim Minis Anishinaabeg on her paternal side and Mackinac Island on her maternal, she is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. She has a passion for strengthening identity through tribal genealogy, advancing collective understanding of Treaty, Tribal Sovereignty, Oral history and place based story telling. Her work centers around building community where all can thrive and uplifting twospirit voices and experiences. She was named Mx. AIHEC 2025-2026 and is the recipient of the Frank Hugo Anishinaabe Language Award 2025.

Reporting Specialist

Sierra (she/her) is Bear Clan Anishinaabe from K’itchi Wiikwedong, Odawa, and Ojibwe. She began her career as a professional storyteller in 2020 through a partnership with Indigenizing the News and the Traverse City Record-Eagle. Through this collaboration, she contributed stories to a network of various media that were published across Michigan.

In 2021, Sierra was selected as a Report for America Corps Member via the Record-Eagle, becoming the newspaper’s first Native American journalist and Michigan’s first full-time Indigenous Affairs Reporter. Despite the relative brevity of her career, her work has earned numerous awards for its focus on Anishinaabek culture, contemporary issues, and historical narratives.

Sierra has served as a keynote speaker at universities and public events, addressing topics such as Indian Residential Boarding Schools, Indigenous representation in media, and the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. Her work is cited in academic literature and publications centered on contemporary Anishinaabe communities.

She became involved with Miigwech, Inc. in 2021, highlighting their work in an article. Today, she writes the organization’s quarterly newsletter, Miigwech INK.

Sierra’s debut novel, What the Ancestors Say, will be published in September 2026 by Broadleaf Books. She is committed to using the privilege of her platform to tell stories for the Anishinaabek People, stories that help lay the path for the next seven generations.

Administrative Coordinator

Bio coming soon