Teacher delivering food, toys to Cherokee Native Americans

Dawson-Bryant High School teacher Dan Harmon is set to make a trip to Cherokee, North Carolina this weekend, delivering food and toys to the Cherokee Native American Reservation, home of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, for Christmas.

Originally from Coal Grove, Harmon is a quarter Cherokee and moved to the Cherokee reservation six years ago, taught at the high school and coached basketball and softball. The reservation is actually its own entity, owned by the Cherokee, not by the United States.

“When my grandbaby was born, I came back up here,” Harmon said. “Two years later, our church, Ironton First Church of the Nazarene, did a mission trip to Cherokee and we remodeled houses, fixed some bridges and did some fence work there.”

This weekend, after the church and Dawson-Bryant High School collected food and toys, Harmon will be delivering them to the Cherokee Christ Fellowship Church.

“I have a truck load full of things to take. It’s great to help the kids out and people who are in need,” Harmon said. “And it’s great to revive the culture, because Native American culture has been dying.”

Harmon said that while this trip contains mostly food with some toys, he plans on making another trip to Cherokee closer to Christmas with more toys for the children.

Harmon is a Career Based Intervention specialist at Dawson-Bryant High School.