The Braham Area Education Foundation is gearing up for another special celebration of Braham’s history and its future, with its Sixth Annual Spring Gala on April 13th at the beautiful Braham Event Center.
The event will include a live and silent auction and a special keynote address from Braham Graduate Dr. Heidi Korstad. The Gala will also include recognition of the current members of the Braham Hall of Fame, along with the induction of its newest members.
Dr. Heidi Korstad graduated from Braham High School in 1972, and attended college at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she majored in Biology, minored in Chemistry, and was a member of the varsity basketball and volleyball teams. She then attended medical school at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), where she was one of just six female members in her class and served as the class president, and then at the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 1980 following a three-month stretch serving at a hospital in Liberia.
After a three-year residency in Eau Claire, Dr. Korstad served as a family physician and as director of emergency and ambulance services in Bigfork for 35 years. Throughout her life Dr. Korstad has been an extraordinary contributor to the Bigfork community and beyond.
Tickets to the Gala, which will begin with a social hour at 5:30 p.m. and will include dinner beginning at approximately 6:30 p.m., are $50, and are available for purchase from individual advisory board members, and at the Braham Area High School Superintendent’s Office at the Braham Area High School.
For contributors purchasing eight tickets for $400, a full table will be reserved in your name, or in the name of your company or organization. In addition, if you would like to serve as a named sponsor of the event, you can serve as a Platinum sponsor with a $5,000 contribution, a Gold sponsor with a $3,000 contribution, a Silver sponsor with a $1,500 contribution, and a Bronze sponsor with a $750 contribution.
Finally, supporters of Braham’s students can also contribute at any time by making a tax-deductible contribution online at https:// www.givemn.org/story/Baef, or by sending a check written to the Initiative Foundation, with
Braham Area Education Foundation in the memo line, to Initiative Foundation – 446122, P.O. Box 64182, St. Paul, MN 55164-0182.
The Braham Area Education Foundation officially launched in August of 2017, after more than a year of planning and community engagement. The mission of the foundation is to provide Independent School District #314 with enhanced educational opportunities and resources, support academic excellence, and encourage student achievement.
The foundation’s volunteer board is working to fulfill that mission in partnership with the Initiative Foundation, a regional non-profit organization with a long history of supporting community development throughout east central Minnesota.
Thanks to the contributions of dozens of local businesses and hundreds of friends of education in Braham, the Foundation’s endowment surpassed $370,000 in early 2024, and will be a continuing source of support for Braham’s students long into the future. In the first years of that journey, the foundation has distributed dozens of grants totaling nearly $53,000 since late 2018, all to support innovative learning opportunities that extend beyond the reach of the school district’s budget.
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