November 15, 2003
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We at MinneapolisNEXT are pleased to tell you that we are now seeing the seeds that we have been planting together these last few years bear real and lasting fruit. And we are proud to say it is a bumper crop.
This fall, the first “graduates” of our program entered college. Drake, Florida State, Hampton Institute, Mankato State, North Dakota State, St. Benedict’s, St. Olaf’s and Southwest State are some of the institutions of higher learning in which they are flourishing. With great anticipation, we are watching these young people realize the potential we recognized and nurtured these past few years.
But there are so many more behind them. We are receiving more applications than ever and seeing, too, an expanding need in the ever-widening community we serve. Our students have less in common on paper these days — different races, nationalities and family circumstances — but two constants remain: poverty and potential. Your contribution will enrich their lives, our community and our country long after their scholarships are funded.
Our partnership with the Hollywood School of Dance in North Minneapolis continues. As their largest donor, we provided more than 25 scholarships to deserving dancers this year. We continue to assist the 40 teams of the Minnesota Magic Boys’ Basketball Club, one of the largest AAU basketball programs in the country. Our goal is that no player be turned away for lack of funds. And our Scholarship Program, the crown jewel of NEXT’s giving, allows 25 motivated, deserving students access to college preparatory coursework at local private schools for the 2003-04 academic year.
It is heart-breaking to have to turn away a greater number of applicants each year, but this has only strengthened our commitment to break the cycle of poverty for local families, to help newly-arrived immigrants make the transition to life here, and to ease the difficulties others are enduring as they fall through the safety net in hard economic times. We continue to take pride in the hallmarks of our business model: efficiency and an extremely low overhead/expense ratio. This ethic has allowed us to maintain our programs despite the drop in revenue all nonprofits have suffered. But we need your help.
Please take a moment to send a donation today. Join us on this journey, as we sow the seeds in our changing community for a stronger society and a better world…one dream at a time.
Happy holidays to you and yours,
Rexford Holland, President
rholland@minneapolisnext.org