Difference Makers 2.0

WÓYUTE | Four Bands Community Fund Incubates Traditional Grocer

• Host: Elyse Wild | Producers: Native CDFI Network, Tribal Business News

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In Eagle Butte, S.D., on the Cheyenne River Lakota Reservation, tribal citizens can find high-quality traditional foods, such as bison and wild rice, at Wóyute Natural Foods & Apothecary.

For owner Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota), the business she launched in 2023 is a testament to food sovereignty and a commitment to her community.

“Access to healthy foods is really important to me,” Fischer said. “Watching my parents and grandparents succumb to different ailments because of the Western diet introduced to our areas made access to healthy foods a key issue for me.”

Like many Native Americans of their generation who didn't have access to their traditional diets, Fischer's grandparents and mother had diabetes.

“My mom never wanted any of us to get diabetes,” Fischer said. “This is all kind of like a legacy to her.”

Supported by Four Bands Community Fund, a certified Native CDFI, Wóyute is thriving in a business incubator that provides essential services and a low-risk environment for growth. Executive Director Lakota Vogel shares insights on the importance of creating physical spaces for small businesses in underserved markets.

Tune in to the Difference Makers 2.0 podcast to hear Donita Fischer and Lakota Vogel discuss their journey and vision for a sustainable, community-focused food economy.


Difference Makers 2.0 is a new yearlong series that highlights how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) work alongside their small business clients to accelerate change and create economic opportunities in Native communities. Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they shine a spotlight on the people accelerating economic change in Indian Country. Read the stories here and be sure to tune into the Difference Makers 2.0 podcast.

Elyse Wild:

You may have heard the term food sovereignty in the past few years, but what does it mean? Why does it matter, and what does it have to do with native CDFIs? Food sovereignty means having the right to healthy and culturally suitable food that is grown, produced and distributed by the people who eat it with forest removal and assimilation that persisted for centuries, native communities lost a lot their languages, cultural practices, family units and their foods. Today, communities across Indian country are working to revive their traditional diets and reclaim their health through food sovereignty, a native owned business that gives their communities access to traditional foods is essential to health, equity, economic development and healing. Today, we're going to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota to talk about one native CDFI that is supporting a native small business owner in her mission to exercise food sovereignty and care for her native community. Donita Fisher launched Wyo natural foods and apothecary in 2023 to bring whole and traditional foods back to her community. The shop, which sells indigenous grains, wild rice, ground buffalo, among other items, is located in an incubator space run by Four Bands Community Fund, a native CDFI that has been serving Native Americans in South Dakota for 24 years. Incubators provide resources from brick and mortar space to marketing support to small business owners, providing them a low risk opportunity to test pivot and gain a foothold in the community without incurring large financial risk, like many Native Americans of their generation who didn't have access to traditional diets, Fisher's grandparents and mother had diabetes for her. Wyo is not just a place to sell traditional Whole Foods, but to teach people how to make delicious meals from them and reconnect to their health and culture.

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

Hello. My name is Donita Fisher, and I am the owner operator of wiyutae natural foods, and we'll use day to go take out restaurant in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, and I am a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

Lakota Vogel:

Lakota Vogel, executive director of Four Bands Community Fund, a 24-year old Native CDFI operating on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

Elyse Wild:

Awesome. Lakota, I thought you were gonna say you were 24 years old. I was gonna say like, wow. 24 year old native CFI Executive Director. It's funny. Donita, so tell us where you were in your life when you decided to start your business, and what inspired you to take the leap into entrepreneurship.

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

So I spent the last 30, years of my career in nonprofit career working for various nonprofit organizations, literally, kind of across the country, in the and just getting to that point in my life where I really wanted to step away and make an impact in my local community and post pandemic, knowing that there were supply chain issues and just really hard to access a lot of different foods, and I knew that that it was really time for me to step away from the national nonprofit that I worked for and to just focus on my community. And so last October, I took the leap. So why food? Tell me a little bit about what is. What does food mean to you in your life? Do you have? Is that a big part of your family life? Is that a way that you show love and care for people? Tell me. Tell me why food, when it comes to taking care of your community and giving back access to healthy foods, is really important to me and my family and knowing you know, watching my parents and my grandparents succumb to different, you know, various ailments because of, you know, just just like Western culture of food that really came into our areas and and not, you know, we know that with seed oils that cause inflammation, that cause, you know, different chronic diseases and stuff, I mean, and it's, you know, and there's a lot of probably different factors and stuff, but really, health, access to healthier foods was really kind of key for that, and also key for me and my siblings, you know, to to kind of stop the I mean, you know, diabetics. You know, my my grandparents were diabetic, my mom was a diabetic. And we knew that, you know, there was probably some sort of genetic disposition, but we also believe that something that could be healed through food and and my mom believed it too. And, you know, and that was one of her, you know, she never wanted to see any of us get diabetes as well. And so I think just through food and healing through food is is just something that is really important to us, especially now that she's gone, and it's kind of like a legacy to to her, to build this in her spirit, in my grandparents and my dad as well.

Elyse Wild:

Lakota, tell me about first meeting Donita and what stuck out to you about her as a business owner.

Lakota Vogel:

Well, I think I'll rephrase the question, because Donita and I met in a lot of different ways. As she mentioned, she was a non profit organizer. So I first met Donita as a colleague in the space. So she's been working for a lot of the community organizations that Four Bands relies on as partners in community. So I you know, that was my first interaction with Donita, and just seeing and I think it's true, even as a business owner, what I recognize in Donita is her commitment to community. That's the first words out of her mouth, whether she's a non profit professional or whether she's an entrepreneur, Donita has the first thing she wants to do is give back to community. And I think that's always really helpful to hear from an entrepreneur's perspective, because in our markets that are small and rural, generally, the first motivation should not be profit, just considering the markets are so small. And Donita met that profile for me, in my mind, as well as just taking it slow and steady, Donita has wanted to give back in many different ways in her community. So that looks like volunteering or showing up at community events and witnessing her interactions in those spaces, you know that that will translate well into a small business. And so she's tried a few other small businesses, and finally, kind of has emerged this idea, which, you know, intertwine some of her passions around food and health consciousness in the community. So I think overall, Donita's story arc, we listen for and understanding, you know, the intention and commitment to starting a business. What do you want to get out of that as a small business owner, and when she responds with, you know, changing people's mindsets around food and how they interact with food, as well as increasing access to food. Those are all great intentions to start with, and it allowed us to find a way to support Donita in her in the next step she was going to take for her small business. So tell me about that support. I know that Donita, you're in an incubator space.

Elyse Wild:

So Lakota, tell me about that incubator space looks like, and how Donita is business is an example of the purpose of that incubator space.

Lakota Vogel:

I think it's important to acknowledge that rural areas and markets like the shine diversity reservation, you know, have been left behind for decades, if not centuries, for infrastructure development. So oftentimes we have really informal economies. And so Four Bands has recognized that and been working on it for 24 years. We needed to create physical space for our small businesses to test out their ideas.

Elyse Wild:

That's such a great description of it. And I think that is one of the things that native CDFIs, the people that I've talked to at Native CDFIs that those like aspects of entrepreneurship that might not at first glance, look to be entrepreneurship or look to be like business acumen are, you know, with like, just as you described with the money changing hands for services, you know, cash flowing through the community, all that it is an economy. It is like there people might not even think of themselves as entrepreneurs when they're offering, like, goods and services in that way, but they are, and that's one of the really beautiful things I think about Native CDFIs, is that you can take that and, you know, elevate it into really a successful economy and business for people that might not even think of themselves in that aspect. So Donita, we often talk about the really great parts of owning a business, but tell me what some of the challenges have been and how four bands have helped. Has helped you weather those challenges.

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

You know, I think gender just thinking about food, this type of food, access to this type of food, and in the food that we sell, wanting it to be predominantly Whole Foods, is that it's slow food, and people walking in the store understanding that, okay, these are ingredients. It's not something I can just go home, pop into the oven, and so, so we're selling ingredients to foods, and recognizing that, you know, it's, it's, it's a slow food movement as well. And taking baby steps. You know, stepping away from my career was really like wanting to slow down because I was on a pretty, pretty fast paced life, and wanting to slow that down, and reminding myself that, you know that it's that it is baby steps, and, you know, taking it slow means that, you know, people coming on to getting on board with it, it's taking a while. And so I think, and I don't know if it's like, really a challenge, I mean, I mean, it has been a challenge, you know, just keeping regular customers and and making sure that we have things that are on hand, that people are wanting. And, you know, learning the dynamics of that has been a challenge. And just getting people in the door because of the incubator space, you know, we're not just like on Main Street that, you know, like the like, say, the other grocery store in town, you know, where everybody knows where that is and stuff. And so just, you know, access to the to the healthy access. Has been somewhat of a challenge. But I know that people are, I mean, it's growing, it's definitely growing. And people wanting, wanting, it is definitely growing. And Four Bands has really helped with that, just helping, you know, make it more visible for us and, and they're working on some other things, and you know that that are really helping it become, like, somebody's first thought, I'm like, Okay, I need groceries. You know, do I go to Will you day, or do I go to the other large grocery store that might have more of what I need, but will you tea has more of the quality that I'm needing? So, so just trying to find that healthy balance of making sure I have everything on stock and serving the customers that we have, and really looking at what we need to diversify any of those for the future. It has been somewhat of a challenge. But then that's why we also opened Woyute to go is, you know, there was produce that was going, you know, going to be going bad in this next week or the next few days, and so we're really able to incorporate some of those foods in the takeout business before it's a loss.

Elyse Wild:

That's a really clever solution to the produce going bad. That's great. And I think we talked about this before when we did our first interview, that food habits are really hard for people to change, and I think that once they change, it's a lot easier, but it's really hard to get people to, like, change their thought of like, oh, the first grocery store they go to, or what have you, or committing to. Like, maybe I'll go to two stores, or maybe I'll go to three to make sure I get what I need, but I also get the quality that I need. And I'm eating healthy food that can be really, really challenging, but your food, your products, sound amazing. Tell me what your best seller is at the hot food bar.

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

So we kind of have incorporated, like, protein bowls, or chicken bowls, or, you know, so we have a steam table. So we have a protein rice, sometimes wild rice. The protein is sometimes ground Buffalo and wild rice, and we have indigenous beans and corn and just different items. And so the bowls have really been our best seller, because people can kind of just take what they want, and it's very customizable to everybody's tastes and and, you know, as soon as we say that we're having, you know, a certain bowl, you know, people will definitely be, you know, to make sure to get there early. Because, you know, because we are smaller, we don't make a ton of food. But, you know, because we want to make sure that we have, you know, the quality and stuff. So so we do sell out most, mostly every day. And so we are working on some scaling for that as well. But it definitely the bowls, the protein bowls, have just been definitely the best seller. So, and anything smoked, I have to give my daughter props, because she does a lot of smoking, of meats and stuff, and so anytime she has any of the smoked meats, like the briskets and smoked chicken, or just any of the stuff that she's smoking, people definitely respond well to that, too.

Elyse Wild:

I love that. Donita, my last question for you is, what do you absolutely love about owning your own business? What's the best, best part?

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

I think it's really getting back to community working in the nonprofit. I mean, I did work from home, but I spent a lot of time online and not really in my community. So I think the best part of this has just really been getting back into the community and re meeting people, and also just really meeting people's needs through this social I mean, I consider it social entrepreneurship, because I'm definitely, you know, looking at it as fulfilling a need that's here in the community, and it's just very, very fulfilling to me.

Elyse Wild:

Lakota, tell me what has been really rewarding for you about seeing Donita's business have a positive impact on the community, and through that, how Four Bands has had an impact in the community?

Lakota Vogel:

Well, I think that we actually, you know, I just learned a lot, actually, from listening to Donita today with the slow to I don't know what the acronym you just said, but you know how you're moving. It's a slow movement. And I, what I love about entrepreneurs is usually there are movement builders within communities. And I do view Donita like that with building a movement around healthy foods and what that can look like, and showing that it's possible. Because prior to that, we were all purchasing online, so just knowing that these options are local, she's really responsive. So when you walk into her store and you express like something you're working on, even with specific diets, or something you've read, Donita just has a wealth of information, and she actually has contacts beyond you know that she's built out this Rolodex of contacts from her nonprofit work for people, for you to reach out if you're exploring different things, but it's just a total mindset shift. And I'm grateful to have Donita in that space to bounce ideas off of and and learn from her. She tries to build this movement within the community and hopefully sets a, you know, a role. She's a role model for others to follow. And it's a pace that others can can look at her and say, if you know this is possible, and she's so willing to share and mentor the up and coming entrepreneurs as well, I think that that's, you know, she's foundational to what Four Bands stands for in the community, as far as building for the next. Generation and making sure that we leave our community better than we left it. And I think Donita really exemplifies leaving the community better than we found it

Elyse Wild:

Perfect. Now Donita, I lied when I said that was my last question for you. My last last question for you is, is, what's next? What? What do you have planned on the horizon? And by horizon, I mean, let's say, let's say, one year from now, where would you like your business to be?

Donita Fischer (Cheyenne River Lakota):

My big, big dream goals is to have most of our products coming from right here, our community. And so it's really building a community cooperative of local growers, meat producers, subsistence harvesters, that are really feeling putting we're seeing that in the stores, and that might even be working on policy to to make sure that that that can happen is, is also really important to me, to just make sure that you know that we are addressing some of those, you know, food safety issues, as well as just access, because it's, you know, so important, and that's what we learned from the pandemic, and how important it is to have a local economy, a local food economy, and growing that. So that's definitely our next steps. Is a cooperative.

Elyse Wild:

Thank you for listening. Difference makers. 2.0 is a production of the native CDFI network and Tribal Business News. See you next time you.