Greetings SunUte Members,

SunUte has been closed for about seven months now and we miss all of you! We truly care about each of you and hope that all of you are in good health and getting outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. As you can well imagine, the gravity of COVID-19 and the subsequent closure caught us by surprise. If I look back to March 18, I would not have dreamt the COVID-19 restrictions would have lasted this long, but they do, and I respect the Tribe for their approach to this pandemic.

I have received a handful of calls regarding membership refunds. SunUte is not giving refunds at this time, however, when we reopen each member will get every single day that they missed due to COVID-19 closure added back onto their membership. This addition of days will begin March 18, 2020 and the number of days you receive will be dependent upon how long your membership had left prior to our closure date. For example, if you had 45 days left when we closed in March, there will be 45 days added onto your membership when we reopen.

I have also received a few phone calls from Tribal staff that were having money deducted from their paycheck for their SunUte membership. SunUte members that are not tribal employees pay the full amount for their membership upfront, whereas employees are afforded not only a 50% discount, but an agreed upon amount of money taken out of their paycheck until the membership is paid off. The last day any money was taken out of a tribal paycheck was on July 18, 2020. All employees will also receive days lost due to COVID-19 closure added back onto their membership.

There is no cost to tribal members for a SunUte membership.

For each call or email I receive I respond quickly. I have not received any complaints thus far regarding our approach to refunds.

SunUte’s fitness division has been working with the Legal department to figure out a way we can zoom group exercise classes to you directly, but the liability issue has not yet been resolved.

If you are looking for workouts for yourself or for youth, please check out our Facebook page. We also post tips on how to stay mentally healthy as we all navigate these strange and uncertain times.

If anyone needs to speak to me personally, please feel free to contact me.

Email: rwirth@southernute-nsn.gov

Phone: 970-749-7998

Thank you and stay safe,

Robin Duffy-Wirth, Director,

SunUte Community Center