Santa's College Fund

Our six Santa's College Fund recipients These last few years the MN Christmas Market has focused its efforts into “Santa’s College Fund”, in partnership with local non-profit, The Urban Village. All artisans, makers and brands at the MN Christmas Markets have donated 7% of their sales from the events to the fund.

The Urban Village is a non-profit serving as an incubator for community led projects that are committed to building, supporting and cultivating opportunities for Myanmar diaspora refugees in Minnesota. The Urban Village has been the perfect community partner for executing a scholarship such as this due to their continued investment and kinship they’ve developed within refugee communities here in Minnesota. 

The Reason: When our neighbors thrive, we all thrive. And the reality is that the widening gap between socioeconomic classes is an economic barrier to many of our refugee neighbors standing between them and a 4-year degree.

Santa’s College Fund is a scholarship that exists to remove financial barriers to higher education faced by many of our refugee neighbors living right here in Minnesota, through 4-year scholarships. (Photo features our 6 scholarship students at Bethel.)

A TON has changed in the last year in higher ed, and thanks to Minnesota's new North Star Promise, many of the economic barriers that refugee families face have been eliminated. The MN Christmas Market Santa's College Fund was created to remove financial barriers to higher education faced by many refugee families (specifically Karen and Karenni youth) living here in Minnesota. This action at the State level in some ways accomplishes that goal.

So what does that mean for our scholarship?

It means we're going to maintain the scholarship for our current students on scholarship to finish out their degrees... and from there the social giveback of the MN Christmas Market will be starting with something new in 2025!

To reiterate, all money that you've given previously will go and has gone towards current Santa's College Fund Scholars' tuition.

Moving Forward

We are glad that the Minnesota legislature has made college education more accessible to the many refugee communities in Minnesota. As stated above, this means that we will be discontinuing our Santa's College Fund while maintaining our current scholars that do not benefit from this new legislation through their graduation.

THANK YOU
We are more thankful to have you on our team than you know. When we look at the last few years and all that has happened in life, there might not be anything we're more proud of and excited by than seeing our students getting the opportunity to get a degree and be the kinds of people we want to see leading in the world for years to come. We are deeply grateful friends!

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SCHOLARSHIP ANCHORS:

We're so so thankful for everyone who is and has been contributing to make this scholarship possible at every financial level. We'd also be remiss if we didn't acknowledge a group of families and organizations that we refer to as our Scholarship Anchors. These are the folks who have committed enough money to single-handedly cover the scholarship costs necessary for 4 years to put one or more students through school. It is through their larger vision and commitment to this fund that we're able to pursue loftier goals on behalf of more of our neighbors.