One of the first benchmarks on the Northfield Promise cradle-to-career continuum is “Every Northfield child will be ready for kindergarten.” Until this point, however, it has been difficult to assess how we as a community are doing on this important measure.

There’s real diversity to the Ready for K team – from stay-at- home moms to school district, public health, pediatrics, and library staff, Latinos and whites. Together we are tasked with determining what it takes to be ready for kindergarten – socially, academically, physically. We’re figuring out what “ready” means and what resources there are for people.

Representative Paul Thissen (Minnesota House Minority Leader) visited Northfield last week to learn more about the Northfield Promise initiative and the collective impact efforts underway in the community.

Accelerate Northfield needs you! There are currently more than 200 unfilled slots for tutors in our local schools. For as little as an hour a week, you can make a difference in the life of a student who is struggling and needs just a little boost to improve his or her academic standing.

One of the needs that has consistently emerged through the work of Northfield Promise has been to ensure that there are proper supports for young people in the community who are struggling with mental health concerns.

Northfield Promise is excited to welcome two new additions to the team – Margaret Huber and Zaret Calderon. These part-time positions are made possible through funding from the State of Minnesota.

This summer, a group of Northfield elementary students got a special “boost” in reading through a pilot initiative of the Northfield Promise Reading Team and the PRIMEtime out-of-school-time network. Working to reverse the summer academic slide, “Reading Rockets” ran as part of the Summer PLUS program at Greenvale Park Elementary School.

My two daughters were raised here in Northfield, and now my grandchild is being raised here, so I’ve always been very invested and interested in our schools and our programming for youth – in what we can do to raise our kids as best as possible.

Northfield Promise is one of approximately 60 communities nationwide that have been accepted into the Strive Together National Network. Strive Together is the national leader in the field of collective impact.

Northfield Promise was one of five collective impact initiatives that received pilot funding from the State of Minnesota during the recently completed state legislative process.