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New Grant Program Shines Light On Exceptional Mpls. Educators

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – So many teachers support kids in their classroom in ways that go unnoticed every day. Now, a new program is not only shining a spotlight on the good work teachers are doing, but giving them the funds to keep doing it.

Judy Brown is one of the recipients of The John & Denise Graves Foundation's Minneapolis Educator Leadership Award. She's using sewing to create a culture of sisterhood in school.

The patches may be stitched together with a thin line of thread, but the bond formed by the girls who sewed this quilt is thick as can be.

That's thanks to Brown, a social worker for Minneapolis Public Schools who saw a need and developed a solution.

"In the lunch room sometimes you would see kids separated by their different cultures and I said, 'We need to stop this, we need to figure out a way to get the kids to interact,'" Brown said.

At Folwell School, Brown developed a social-emotional girls group that utilizes sewing to increase students self and cultural awareness. Students with different cultural backgrounds explore their similarities through a sewing exercise.

"The girls are charged with identifying female role models and picking a piece of material that represents that female role model," Brown said. "You can feel it's a little bumpy, a student might say this is my sister she's a little rough around the edges."

Eight grade student Lanaya Child, who helped with the quilt, explained her patch.

"I chose this one because it represents my nana. She can be mean, she can be nice so  she kind of has a mix," she said.

"With quilting they're able to identify some of the similarities that they have with one another," Brown said.

"She teaches us how to be like ladies and she makes us know that we're sisters," Mirical Sumler, a student, said.

When the sewing machines are off, heavy topics are woven in their conversations.

"A lot is going on with Black Lives Matter and…those movements, so we took that and flipped that to talk about positive communication styles, ways to get your messages out, the differences between rioting and picketing," Brown said.

The girls also brainstorm how to resolve racial divides in their own school.

"At lunch we sit, there would be a table of Mexicans and blacks and whites and then I would go over and talk to them and mix everyone together," Child said.

Brown's efforts to close the cultural divide in the lunchroom and everywhere at Fowell, has been noticed by The John and Denise Graves Foundation.

This is the first year the foundation is awarding grants to educators who are making a difference.

"It was important for us to find teachers and educators who are doing unique things, but maybe haven't had that experience with grant writing or maybe don't even know themselves that they're doing incredible things," Bill Graves, Founding Executive Director, John & Denise Graves Foundation, said.

Brown is receiving between $5,000-$10,000 to keep her sewing program going, and hopes to someday make its mission the fabric of the community.

"Even though we're different on the outside, we're the same on the inside," she said.

Brown says she wants to use some of the money to take the girls to visit a school in San Francisco that incorporates sewing and cultural awareness as well. She wants get them out of Minnesota to expand their horizons.

This award is only available to educators in Title 1 schools, which means a certain number of students are on free and reduced lunch.

The list of 2015 MELA winners and their grant funded projects are as follows:

  • Candida Gonzalez (Roosevelt High School): Integrating arts into core classrooms through a school mural project
  • Corinth Matera (Minneapolis South High School): Creative writing program integrating visiting artists, a spoken word club and a literary magazine
  • Jennifer Eik (Roosevelt High School): Student led leadership summits
  • Judy Brown (Folwell School - Performing Arts Magnet): A social emotional girls group that utilizes sewing to increase students self-awareness, cultural awareness and school engagement
  • Judy Lander (Lake Nokomis - Wenonah Community School): Building an environmentalist culture through a recycling service learning project
  • Leslie Gisi (Anne Sullivan Middle School): Engaging all students by growing student council representation and social-emotional training
  • Maria Singh (Pillsbury Community School): School wide 3D printing collaborative learning
  • Mark Trumper/Susan Tuck (Pillsbury Community School): After school bicycling skills program to promote outdoor adventure, problem solving and team building
  • Paula Cole (Emerson Spanish Immersion): Parent advocacy and leadership program
  • Penny Bartz (Andersen United Community School): Mobile health clinic
  • Steve Emerson (Olson Middle School): Team building retreats for social-emotional learning
  • Tara Kennedy (Thomas Edison High School): Canoeing and camping in Voyageurs National Park
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