HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014 03-19 Friday Opinuendo: On ambition, quality of life, hometown love and more PIONEER PRESS4/6/2016 Friday Opinuendo: On ambition, quality of life, hometown love and more... -Twin Cities
Friday Opinuendo: ambition,
,41f life, hometown love and more
By 'SII ITII ' II"SII"DIY
March 19, 2014 1 UPDATED: 2 years ago
Growing entrepreneurs
A $1 million grant to fund youth entrepreneurship programs at Jun iorAchievement of the Upper Midwest is
the single largest gift the Maplewood -based nonprofit ever has received.
The grant from the Otto Bremer Foundation will fund a multi-year initiative for the students Junior
Achievement serves in Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin.
The organization's new Otto Bremer Entrepreneurship Fund will focus in particular on students from
vulnerable and immigrant populations. According to a 2012 Small Business Administration report,
immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business as non -immigrants, a statement from the
organization nates.
The grant "really will allow us to accelerate aur work in entrepreneurship," along with personal finance and
college and career readiness, Junior Achievement's President and CEO Gina Blayneytold us.
Entrepreneurial initiatives include the organization's original program, in which high school students
actually run a company. "It's not theory," Blayney said. "They are engaged in running a live company with
student leaders, real money and a real product or service."
The grant, she said, will help the organization "show kids the world of entrepreneurship and the rale it can
play in our free enterprise system."
The organization's in -school and after-school programs this school year will reach more than 152,000
students in grades K-12 — work that includes more than 7,000 volunteers, mostly business professionals,
who share their expertise to inspire students.
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As we face the future, it will be important to "rekindle the spirit of entrepreneurship," said the foundation's
Brian Lipschultz. With its resources and reach, Jun iorAchievement can help make it happen.
On stage with a legend
Two nurses from Ecumen, a Shoreview -based nonprofit senior housing and services provider, shared a
stage this week in Washington, D.C., with music legend Glen Campbell and his family.
They received awards at an Alzheimer's -awareness event, the Great Minds Gala — Ecumen's Shelley
Matthes and Maria Reyes for a program that uses nonpharmaceutical approaches to improve patients'
quality of life, and the singer and his family for advocacy for continued research, education and support for
those suffering with the disease.
Ecumen received the Excellence in Dementia Care Award from Ellen Proxmire, in honor of her late husband,
Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, who died of Alzheimer's, and LeadingAge, a national association of
nonprofit senior services organizations.
Ecumen was honored for its "Awakenings" program, aimed at reducing or eliminating the use of anti-
psychotic medications among people with Alzheimer's and related dementias.
The program used behavior modification and other alternative techniques to reduce the use of anti-
psychotic drugs by 98 percent in 1,200 patients in 16 nursing homes, according to a Washington Past report,
saving $200,000 to $350,000 a month in Medicare and Medicaid spending on the medications and making
patients more alert and active.
Patients "just became more alive and more awake, and that's why we called it Awakenings," Matthes told
the Past. "It's not stopping the disease's progress, but it's improving the quality of life for the person, and
the quality of the family experience, as well."
Home No. 280
A stop on the spring Parade of Hames tour has a unique academic pedigree.
Home No. 280 at 6443 McCauley Terrace in Edina was built as a project of the advisory board for real estate
programs at the University of St. Thomas.
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The house, listed on the tour at $1.6 million, will be sold, with proceeds helping to support the university's
real estate programs and student scholarships, according to Herb Tousley, director of the university's
Shenehon Real Estate Center.
Tousley said the project also provided a hands-on learning experience for real estate students involved in
construction management of the home with five bedrooms and six baths on a wooded cul-de-sac on
Arrowhead Lake.
From appearing before the city planning commission to obtaining permits to helping with the project
budget, students gat a lot of experience they couldn't get in a classroom, Tousley told us.
The advisory board partnered with builder JMS Custom Hames and used connections within the industry to
solicit donated labor and materials in an effort to reduce the casts and increase project proceeds.
The Parade of Hames continues through March 30.
A better place
St. Paul is relying on superlatives this week to describe the life and contributions of Andy Bass, the banker
and community leader who died March 12 at age 81.
"I would call him the greatest St. Paul citizen of the last 50 years," said Richard Beeson, chair of the
University of Minnesota Board of Regents, quoted in the Pioneer Press by reporter Molly Guthrey.
Writing in the community newspaper serving Bass' St. Anthony Park neighborhood, the Park Bugle, Editor
Kristal Leebrick in 2012 recalled an event at Park Midway Bank at which Bass was honored: "A scroll was
unrolled from the bank's second floor that contained the names of nearly 60 nonprofits where Bass served
as a founder, director, officer or funder, and sometimes, all four."
The "two-story tribute" she wrote, spanned education, housing, the arts and economic development.
For every organization he touched, Bass was a "significant change agent," Peter Pearson, president of the
Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, told us. "He brought organizations to a new level."
There's no doubt he leaves his hometown a better place.
Further, in a better place, Opinuendo sayeth not.
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