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Posted December 31, 2005


Contact:
Amanda Erekson, Operations Manager

MAVIN FOUNDATION CELEBRATES MANY MILESTONES IN 2005


(Seattle) MAVIN Foundation celebrated many exciting milestones in 2005, thanks to the generous support of our 8,000 members and donors. In addition to launching four new projects, we continued our award-winning health and community programming, produced a film, and embarked on a strategic planning process. Other 2005 highlights included: marking our most successful fundraising year ever, seeing our website receive over five million hits, and learning that our founder and president, Matt Kelley, will step down in early 2006.

In true "Year in Review" fashion, here's a quick run-down of our busy and productive 2005:

January

We kicked off the year by opening its doors to welcome the community into its Pioneer Square offices. Food, resources and dozens of rambunctious kids highlighted the evening!

We registered our 10,000th bone marrow donor as part of our MatchMaker Bone Marrow Project!

February

We celebrated Valentine's Day with our first-annual "Colors of Love: A Celebration of Interracial and Intercultural Love," an intimate evening with local interracial couples to commemorate the historic Supreme Court Case, Loving v. Virginia.

We launched its"One Box Isn't Enough!" campaign. In the fall, students delivered over 3,200 comment cards to the U.S. Department of Education encouraging them to implement the 1997 federal mandate requiring schools to allow students to mark more than one race on forms.

March

We launched the Generation MIX National Awareness Tour, which sent five twenty-somethings 10,000 miles across the U.S. in an RV to raise awareness of America's multiracial baby boom! The Tour was covered by the New York Times and NPR!

April


Matt Kelley provided testimony to the U.S. Congress', Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee about the health needs of multiracial Americans.

May

Matt Kelley presented the findings of MAVIN's Community MAP pilot project with the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and the Japanese American Citizen's League to explore project expansion opportunities. The Board presented Kelley with an official document endorsing the project.

June

Matt Kelley presented at the National Education Association's (NEA) national conference in Los Angeles about the education needs of mixed heritage students in America's classrooms. It was the first time that the issue was formally addressed by the nation's largest teacher's organization.

July

We launched the Adoptee Empowerment Project to develop cultural identities and connectedness among international adoptees.

We celebrated the third anniversary of our Seattle-area community group, MIX, with a barbecue at Luther Burbank Park.

August

We continued to provide our unique internship experience to 27 high school and college students in 2005 alone!

We conducted our second annual National Mixed Heritage Student Leadership Retreat at beautiful Mt. Rainier National Park.

September

We formally launched the Mixed Heritage Center with the Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA) via a beta website. The MHC will be the central clearinghouse of information related to mixed heritage issues!

We began to release outcomes from our strategic plan, which included a new mission and three areas for future programming: Health, Education and Policy.

October

We conducted our third annual Gala and Auction, "Imagine," at the swanky McCaw Hall at Seattle Center. Over the past three years, our Gala has raised over $200,000 for MAVIN Foundation programming.

We produced the documentary film, "Chasing Daybreak," which chronicles the Generation MIX National Awareness Tour, and screened it in multiple locations across the U.S., as well as South Korea and Brazil!

Our founder/president, Matt Kelley, announced that he will step down in early 2006. Immediately, an Executive Transition Committee is established and a national search goes underway.

November

We published a groundbreaking report on how U.S. colleges and universities classify their mixed heritage students, which found that a mere 3% do so correctly!

December


We created a Web site for multiracial and transracially adopted college students to help them navigate the creation and maintenance of student groups, including a 120-page online toolkit.

We launched our Education Project, which combined existing MAVIN programming with bold new initiatives to create a support pipeline for America's 2.5 million mixed heritage students.

Our website (www.mavinfoundation.org) surpasses the five million hits mark in 2005.

We closed out the year with nearly $600,000 in cash and in-kind support from our members, donors and funders, making 2005 our most successful fundraising year to date!


Thank you to everyone who makes our work possible. We wish you health and happiness in the New Year, and look forward to continuing to celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families in 2006!

MAVIN Foundation builds healthy communities that celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families. Since 1998, MAVIN has invested over $2.5 million into innovative and award-winning projects focused on mixed heritage people, transracial adoptees and multiracial families. For more information, visit www.mavinfoundation.org.

For more information, email Amanda or call 206 622 7101.

 





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