The Red Shirt Project started as an outreach ministry of St. George's Episcopal Church, La Canada, California. Originated in about 1998, each year a group of adults from Southern California visited the village of Red Shirt on the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Red Shirt is one of the poorest parts of the entire United States, with unemployment consistently above 90%, with severe problems of alcoholism, teenage suicide, and a wide range of other social issues and problems. Since its inception, The Red Shirt Project has sought to help the people of Red Shirt and the surrounding area of the reservation, particularly seeking to help the Lakota children and Elders. Each year the group gains more in return than it gives: learning from the Lakota and benefiting richly from our experiences at Red Shirt.

Each summer a group of adults and teens from Southern California - usually a diverse group, evolving over the years so that by 2014 only a few of whom attended St. Georges - visited Red Shirt for one week to both work with the children amd mothers there as well as to work on various projects benefiting the village and Lakota peoples of Red Shirt Mesa. The Project also arranged collection and distribution of Christmas gifts each year for the children of Red Shirt, a sub-ministry headed up by Project co-f0under Francie Cassidy.

Subsequently, The Red Shirt Project lost the backing and support of St. Georges and is now seeking a new church to act as sponsor

The Red Shirt Project is coordinated by Rev. Tim Langdell

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