Our Mission

Why do we do what we do at the Center?
The best reason to do anything is to help others. The Red Road to Wellness Center came into existence for healing, educating, and sharing Native traditions. The Center incorporates these traditions with other holistic approaches to balancing and healing ourselves, connecting all through Native Spirituality.

Part of our mission involving helping people using ancient techniques, rooted in several Indigenous traditions. Drawing from the Cherokee People, Osi (Water Lodge) is used at the Center as well as various herbal preparations. These tools and methods have helped Native peoples for millennia and continue to heal the People in the present and the future. We also focus on the Center being a place for Healers to be Healed themselves, to recharge and reconnect to help them with their work.

The Center also serves as a Safe House for battered or abused women and children, so that they may have peace and safety while they restart their lives.

The Center’s counselors are dedicated to its Mission. It comes down to something simple: of all the things we can do in life, helping others is the only way to make a difference.

Red Road to Wellness Center Board of Directors

Jim Goodin, Director & Board Co-Chair
Jim is an internationally recognized Native American Spiritual healer and helper known in Native circles as “Arrowhawk.” He was given that name in Native Ceremony when training to become a Spiritual leader and healer. Decades of being part of Native Ceremony and his fifteen years of experience in the medical surgical field with the Veterans’ Administration have given Arrowhawk a unique perspective on healing.

rrowhawk is active in powwow circles as a traditional and Veteran dancer. He has been both Head Man dancer and Head Veteran dancer. Arrowhawk’s Teachers include Tribal Medicine People from the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Cherokee nations. As for all professions, experience is the cement that binds the concrete and Arrowhawk’s experiences brought him to the interrelation of feather medicine and acupuncture techniques.

Focusing on Native cultures, healing techniques, and Ceremonies, Arrowhawk has taught the young and old. He received an offer from William Woods College for a Fellowship teaching position in the Fine Arts department. He has spoken at many schools across the country, including the Montessori Schools in Key West and Sarasota, Florida.

He is also an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.

Arrowhawk co-founded and maintains the Red Road To Wellness Center located near Winona, Missouri. He hosts and organizes Native Ceremonies there and other parts of the country.

Lora Garrett, Business Manager
Lora comes to the Center with twenty-five years of experience and a BA in business management and organization. Her past and present duties include purchasing, contract negotiation, payroll, employee benefits, marketing, grant writing, and general business management.

Lora has volunteered and helped organize fundraising events for several non-profits organizations including Native American community groups and the Boy Scouts of America. Lora is also known as “Healingdove” at the Center where she assists with ceremony and spiritual healing and is proud to be ordained as minister by the Universal Life Church.

(Photo Coming Soon)

Dennis “Fire Eagle” Largent, Community Outreach
Dennis lives in the St. Louis metropolitan area, helping to coordinate the Center’s outreach with many communities. Dennis acts as a Vision Quest Guide at the Center each May and also serves as a leader with the Mankind Project of St. Louis. He maintains an active Sweat Lodge in the St. Louis area near the sacred Cahokia Mounds.

Dennis draws on his experiences with several spiritual Traditions including Toltec, Cherokee, and Lakota.

(left to right) Ruth Ann, Erica (friend of the Center) & Cherry

Ruth Ann Mohr, Clan Mother & Seer
When asked what to write about her on the Center’s website, Ruth Ann sums up herself simply: “I am who I am.”

But Ruth Ann is someone without whom the Center wouldn’t have a key voice, the voice of the Clan Mother. Ruth Ann speaks—especially to protect those in trouble and to stand for what’s right—but just as often she listens for what is and is not said. She watches over the Sweat Lodges, hanging up blankets after Ceremony and returning them to the Lodge for next time. And more often than not, Ruth Ann is first in line to be Smudged before entering.


Cherry Shafer, RN BSN, Medical Advisor
Sister to Ruth Ann, Cherry brings not only her extensive medical training to help those who come to the Center, she also gives back to others in more subtile ways. Cherry raises (as shown in the background of the picture above) stunningly large and fragrant roses, which serve as a welcome reminder of the beauty of Creation.

Also, Cherry has served as Lodge Pourer for Women’s Sweat Lodge Ceremonies—one recognition of the critical part Women play in Creation and at the Center.

The Red Road to Wellness Center’s website is designed and maintained by 4 Horizons LLC.