Anna Sarcia is a senior at Haskell Indian Nations University, but only recently has she learned of the other Lawrence organization that serves American Indians — Pelathe Community Resource Center.

“Prior to this, no, I wasn’t even aware of Pelathe,” said Sarcia, now an intern at Pelathe, 1423 Haskell Ave., an organization that provides job training and advocacy programs for American Indians in Lawrence.

And Sarcia’s story, officials at both Haskell and Pelathe say, isn’t that unusual.

“For a lot of the students here, yes,” said Mike Tosee, a Haskell faculty member in the American Indian studies program. “The connection to the community is not solidified in any way — they’re here for nine months, then go.”

That’s changing.

This past summer, officials from Haskell and Pelathe signed a memorandum of understanding that commits both organizations to a new, formal partnership.

The result: Haskell has a new outlet at Pelathe to train students in community service, and Pelathe gets the use of Haskell buildings to run some community programs, such as the New Dawn Native Dancers.

Sarcia is one of two students in Haskell’s American Indian Studies program who are interning at Pelathe under the agreement. She’s spent her time applying for grants so that Pelathe can afford to pay interns and keep the program running.

“It teaches them, if they choose to go back to a reservation, how to work in an organization that serves a reservation,” said Tosee, who oversees the interns for Haskell. “There’s always a real scraping for money, a fighting for money.”

Anna Sarcia, a senior at Haskell Indian Nations University, is working as an intern this semester with the Pelathe Community Resource Center as part of a partnership between Haskell and Pelathe. Sarcia is pictured Wednesday in the center's gift shop.

That’s the case at Pelathe, where administrators have been scrambling to obtain grants and donations to keep the agency running. Carolyn Hicks, Pelathe’s co-director, said the interns had made it possible to continue serving the community even as the search for money continues.

And it provides a dose of reality to students who’ve been locked away in classrooms, Hicks said.

“I think we supply a valuable service,” she said. “To go through school, you get the academic side. To come here, you put it into practices — and it’s a unique experience.”

Sarcia, a native of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, said the experience also had given her a new sense of community during her time in Lawrence.

“I think that’s an incredible benefit,” she said. “When you leave home to go to school, you feel so alone … (at Pelathe) it’s a family away from home.”

Sarcia has begun to encourage her fellow students to volunteer at Pelathe.

“I don’t want,” she said, “for anybody else not to have this experience.”