October 22, 2024

School is back in session, students are back in classrooms, and it’s the perfect season to reflect as a community on how the time we spent on campus led us to where we are today. As MPA alum, we have experienced firsthand the power of a faculty, staff, and community dedicated to helping students discover and develop their passions and dreams.

It is in this spirit that you are invited to join us for the 2024 MPA Fall Campaign: Igniting Dreams, One Gift at a Time. With your support, we can ensure faculty and staff have the tools and resources they need to ensure students keep dreaming.

As I’m starting out my new career in law, I am constantly reminded of the impact MPA had on my dream to one day join the legal profession. There are the social studies and history classes—from the Parade of States to Ms. Conway’s famous lectures on Civil Rights and the Cold War—that sparked my interest in American government, politics, and foreign affairs. There are the speeches and projects—from Chaucer recitations to mock oral arguments at the Minnesota Supreme Court—that helped me hone my research and public speaking skills and develop a curiosity for constitutional interpretation. And there are the early mornings and late nights—from chamber choir rehearsals to meets running past midnight out on the track—that taught me the importance of teamwork, perseverance, and the benefit of having caring peers who are just as focused on pursuing their dreams as they are in supporting you achieving yours. At work, while helping clients achieve their goals and navigate novel legal challenges, I find myself drawing upon my experience as a panther and am always grateful to MPA for its role in igniting my dream from an early age.

Whether spiking a volleyball in the Lansing Center, building the latest gadget in the Makerspace, or singing on stage in the Nicholson, MPA is a place that provides students with so many opportunities to ignite and pursue their dreams. Be they athletic, academic, or artistic, students have opportunities to explore interests that lead down a wide variety of paths. I was reminded of this variety most recently at my ten year reunion, hearing from my classmates pursuing their passions in fields ranging from publishing and special education to marketing and farriery. MPA was one of the early steps in all of our journeys to where we are today, and we owe it to current and future Panthers to help support an educational environment that ignites the dreams of all.

Please Save The Date

The Fall Campaign will be November 17-November 23, culminating with Give to the Max Day on November 21. Keep an eye out for next month’s Alumni News, where we’ll hear more from Kevin McQuade ’07 about Igniting Dreams One Gift at a Time.

The Fall Campaign is a time when we can all come together to help achieve MPA’s fundraising goal of $400,000 and help ignite dreams across the Panther community. A donation to MPA is not just an investment in the school but also in the dreams of current and future Panthers.

Please visit moundsparkacademy.org/support or reach out via email at giving@moundsparkacademy.org to learn about different giving options.

Sincerely,

Kethan Dahlberg ’14