[Music] Oho minetonka I'm David law superintendent of motanka schools thank you for joining us for this episode of our district podcast aoy minetonka today we're talking about the motanka public schools Foundation which has been providing incredible support to our district for nearly 40 years joining us today are the executive director of the foundation Jill how and the board chair trun Dows thank you both for being here please tell me a little bit about your connection to the district and this work thank you superintendent law I'm Jill how I am the executive director for the foundation I've been with the foundation for the last five years my background is really in finance and fundraising and events I did a lot with the district when my kids were in um the schools here I just have a passion for uh helping students and it's a great way to fundraise and get involved and just see change and see um all the great things that we can do with the donations and the Partnerships that we have with uh corporations and individuals for students and teachers thank you trun yeah I'm trun Dows I'm the uh chair of the motanka public school Foundation this year um I've been doing this for nine years this is my ninth year um I have two students in the district both in middle school right now um and I probably have a unique connection to the foundation as uh 39 years ago my grandfather who was a teacher here at minetonka High School uh helped start the foundation um so it's been in our family for years um I'm I'm super excited to have served for the last nine years um and it's just a great way to give back to the community so just for the benefit of the community there's an employee actually there's two employees a director and a clerical support and then there's a board of directors and so your role you're elected by a group of people and it's a service cycle is that how that works yeah so so there's 19 trustees on the board okay um we we ask those trustees to do a term of three years uh and there's a three term limit so nine years is the most you can do um of that 19 uh we have about seven different committees within that um that help run Finance marketing uh our teacher grant program our endowment program um and then our big events uh and Dream Makers our biggest event has its own committee who who are these 19 people are they parent community members business owners they they are all attached to the district somehow most of them are parents um that that have kids in the district or have had kids in the district um most of them are also community members um who who want to be involved who want to give back to the community um so every year you know we have people that are rolling off the board and we look to fill that um and you know everyone is welcome uh a lot of times we we're looking for candidates uh that want to be involved uh and for as long as they can or want to be um anywhere from 3 to 9 years so so in the rare chance someone else out there watching saying this calls me um what's the obligation is it eight hours a month what what what are people committing to when they serve on the board of the foundation yeah you know what you probably hit it eight hours a month is probably a pretty good estimate um sometimes it can be more than that sometimes it can be less than that uh depending which committees you're you're on as well there's different times of year that you're either more involved or less involved um working up to our big fundraiser as an example um it's pretty much an all committee uh all hands on deck uh so everyone is involved a little bit more now uh than than they would be um but there there's one meeting a month um and uh that's a two-hour meeting and then you probably have a couple hours uh during the nights uh or during the day if if you're available for that throughout the rest of the month uh to kind of complete some tasks or or reach out to the community for support thank you for taking some time to dig into that I know that people might be wondering and they now they know so Jill not there's 300 school districts in the state of Minnesota but there aren't 300 foundations what is a foundation and and how why does minetonka have one what's what's the story so kind of what TR alluded to about uh 39 years ago uh his grandfather and um some other enthusiastic parents and teachers got together they were looking to form something to create support for students and teachers throughout uh so that's how it started and uh we still very much have the same mission that they did um to create to fund programs that create broad sustainable change for all minaka students so we impact every age ofe student from uh preschool going up to graduation basically so we're in all the schools throughout the district uh and like you said there aren't very many in the State uh so we're unique and each one has a different focus of what they fund or what their objective is or how they're tied specifically into the district and we're fortunate to be a partner that works alongside the district to align with the goals and objectives of what the district does so a lot of it is is finding resources and getting them into the classroom let's start with the finding resources how does the foundation fund raise so we have a couple of different Key Programs that we fund raise teacher appreciation is one of them um and that happens two to three times a year depending upon uh what year we're looking at this year we did it uh in the fall and then we'll do another one in the spring that coincides with teacher appreciation week we also like trun said the Dream Makers is our largest event and that is where we do the most fundraising it's an in-person Gala event as well as a virtual auction so couple different components people can participate in both can participate in one can volunteer can help can partner um and then we also have some smaller events that we do throughout the year as well that are geared towards um different groups I guess we we have an adult child dance that has running for the fourth year in the spring that is a great event um to get involved with and then we have some experiences that we promote at Dream Makers as well that are for um individuals community members so uh having attended Dream Makers uh twice I I think it's a super fun event I don't think the public realizes the kinds of fun things that people are auctioning off can you just give a little teaser of the kinds of things that are are auction items that are pretty amazing opportunities for members of the community definitely so this year I'm very excited we have a lot of new opportunities and new experiences um we have some really fun handmade minona items that are just specific you would only find here uh very unique items we have a lot of sporting tickets sporting memorabilia um a lot of interactive Sports experiences as well which is new we have uh several curated Chef dinners or like local restaurants in the area that are doing Special dinner drink combinations um so those are we have a lot of those this year which is really fun some travel some BO some travel some boating yeah all all the fun stuff you enjoy in minona and throughout I remember last year concert tickets to a big concert and hotel stuff I won at an auction once bought tickets to the final four when it was here in town I just for the members of the public if you haven't had if you haven't thought about it it's pretty amazing what people donate to the foundation for the purpose of benefiting our students we have an overseas travel this year so that'll be exciting and very fun and and thank you I mean a 100 times over thank you to our community members for putting this event together or supporting this event and for the people who attend and the volunteers there's a band this year some danc and you're MC oh and and I'm MC people who are really curious about that great so um TR let's talk about the why like this isn't about throwing a party it's about doing things for kids in school what what do we do with the money yeah absolutely most of the money we raise through this event goes back to the school district through our teacher grant program um somewhat through our endowment program as well but I I'll focus on the teacher grants sure let's start there you know there there's been some very memorable teacher grants going back you know there there's of and these are things that teachers can't get out of out of their normal budget so this is just enhancements that they're bringing into their classroom which just benefits all of the students that get to go through that classroom um so you know a couple years years ago we we had an individual and we funded an aquarium so that he could teach his class what underwater Lake minetonka habitat looked like what a cool unique experience to have um we've had vertical Gardens in a lot of the the classrooms throughout the district so that kids can learn how these plants grow Even in our harsh Minnesota winters uh indoors throughout throughout the school year so tell me about that process like how how do teachers know money's available how do they let you know what they're thinking about how is it screw scen yeah so we have a a teacher Grant cycle every year um we we're always asking teachers let us know what you need um see if we can fund it um a lot of it's determined on on how well our fundraisers Do to what amount we're going to have to give back to the teachers um but every year the minona teachers get together and uh in February they give us all of their Grant requests um we put all of those together we meet as a foundation board we talk about the strength of those how it meets all of our goals and and the district's goals uh for Learning and you know we see how far each dollar can go so um we a lot of times we've been fortunate enough to fund almost all of the grants that that that come through um and last year was just over $100,000 in Grants that we were able to fund to incredible teachers throughout the district yeah so we as a district we try to provide as much as we can but this really opens the door for some Innovation and sometimes this innovation is something that we say wow this is impactful it should happen across our district and and sometimes we have a Target we see we'd like to see some innovation in this area and we see it so both of those ways it's a great partnership sometimes you go above and beyond and support something substantial our new Vantage momentum building has technology in the foundation Forum because of a substantial gift there's also this thing about decodable readers now as a superintendent I know this but I'm going to ask the question what's a decodable reader for the public what does that mean so decodable readers are books uh that help our our students who are learning how to read get that solid foundation building phonics building the decodable sounds that that they'll just build on on their reading career with um so this opportunity actually came to us through some teacher grants for the past three years we saw some individual teachers ask for grant money for these decodable readers in their individual classrooms um after seeing that repeated process so many times uh we kind of thought to ourselves this is a great opportunity to maybe impact the whole District um so we had we had a uh a meeting with District staff and said how could we do this like is there a plan that can go in here and what dollar amount would go on that um we got an answer back and and we had what was actually a very short conversation with the board because it aligned with all of our goals it it was something that everyone wanted to get behind and so last year we were able to Grant $100,000 Grant to buy most of these decodable readers um which uh since that time the implementation we we've seen was almost immediate uh they got delivered they got separated they were in all six elementary schools um and all English and Spanish students in kindergarten through second grade are already using them we're getting great feedback from the teachers sometimes people ask me about excellence and the perception as minaka cares about the kids on top really in if I was going to Define excellents I was going to talk about I would say Excellence an opportunity you know you your our foundation your foundation our community was able to provide an exceptional resource for all students excellence and access an opportunity so thank you for supporting that um so if I'm a Community member I I never thought about Dream Makers and now I hear about it I hear about decodable readers is there a theme for this year's Dream Makers yeah so our it's future so bright so Ty very nicely to the decodable readers in the a 9s song yeah it is it is a '90s theme so ties in very well with that as well so yeah we're um you know we're looking for opportunities to make Futures bright for our students and you'll see a lot of that throughout the Dream Makers event which will be new and fun this year so if I want to buy dreammakers tickets it sounds like hey it sounds like everyone in milaka is going to this party I should be going to where do I get tickets you can find a link on our website minona foundation.com and or menona foundation.org and Link right to the website where you can buy tickets you can make a donation directly it will also be where you'll find the silent auction that will open on Monday February 3rd and close on February 7th as well so my all my weekends are busy in February what date is it again it's Friday February 7th so Friday night I can start Friday night you bet is there anything else about the foundation that we haven't covered that you want to make sure the public knows about you know it was funny on my way here I I ran into a lifelong friend and I and I said hey I'm going to tape this and he said For What and I said M the foundation and it's that he didn't know what it was so if you're hearing this and you don't know what the minaka foundation is minaka foundation.org look it up know what we're doing we're doing some very impactful stuff throughout the district um and we'd love for you to help us out and get involved and you're not the district but you're like a really close neighbor that really likes us EX exactly wants to work with you wants to work with us yeah we are so fortunate as a district to have you Jill I want to make sure is there anything else about the foundation that we haven't covered that you think is critical I think uh it's just important to say thank you to everyone that donates to us for the partnership that we have with the district and and even the Alumni Association we work closely with them as well um we just couldn't be more fortunate to have people that are passionate about the district and about students and about teachers and we get so much support from everyone in the community and throughout the district we're just really thankful yeah I'd give a plug for community members who see that list of people who are supporters as they interact with those businesses just to say thank you because we are fortunate to have them or you know give them patronage but thank them for their commitment to the district because we've got many who've been around local businesses that have supported us for a long time 100% thank you both for being here and taking some time to explain what a foundation is what you support how you support education all kids activities and results driven and coordinating our community give to our school district and I want to thank you for being here and joining us for this information about the minaka public schools Foundation we'll see you around [Music]