On the evening of September 12, educators, alumni, civic leaders, partners and members of the community will mark 15 years of accomplishments by Teach for America Twin Cities with a festive fundraising event at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
“Teaching its the hardest job that people will ever learn to love!” said Mikisha Nation, executive director of TFA Twin Cities.
”Our teachers do so much for their students. I want our teachers to feel seen and celebrated. I want them to know how much we appreciate the hard work they do every day. We are centering them in our 15th anniversary.”
Founded in 2009, TFA recruits, develops, and supports a diverse network of 70,000 equity-driven leaders. Some 415 TFA Corps Members have taught in over 60 schools across the Twin Cities, impacting the education of 35,000 students. The local alumni network includes 950 leaders.
Nation said that TFA Twin Cities targets narrowing and even eliminating the region’s racial educational gaps as its key mission.
“In Minnesota, we are a tale of two states. Some kids have access to a high quality education and some don’t, it depends on their zip code and where they grow up,” she said. “We want to change that. We do that by recruiting and retaining teachers, providing them with professional development and support and working losing with our school and district partners.”
TFA Twin Cities has shown significant growth, in both its number of educators the in the scope of its influence. The organization recently welcomed its largest cohort of new teachers since the pandemic, tripling the size of the incoming class of corps members of recent years.
This special anniversary fundraising gala had originally been scheduled for the evening of June 14. However, that was the day that a gunman shot and wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette and killed Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.
At the exact hour that the gala was scheduled, the suspect was still at large, leading to the cancellation of the event.
“When our community experiences tragedy, we have to pause; I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” said Nation. “The Hoffmans and the Hortmans were big supporters of education. We had to postpone to both honor their legacy and to ensure the safety of the teachers and leaders who would be attending the event.”
You can get tickets to the Teach for America anniversary event here.
For information about Teach for America Twin Cities, including learning how to donate, partner or apply, visit here.