Give to the Max!

November has been a month of organized charitable giving in Minnesota since 2009, when ‘Give to the Max Day‘ began. We’re thrilled to join the fun of Give to the Max this year!

The folk school started as a great idea, and a labor of love. Tim Bates, Bryan French, and Carmel DeMaioribus have spent the better part of the past five years pouring all their energies into getting the Duluth Folk School off the ground.

Here’s a quick timeline of some of the high (and one big low) points of our history:

• May, 2016: We had our first class!
• May, 2017: We moved into our new home, at 1917 West Superior Street, in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
• October, 2018: Dovetail Cafe & Marketplace opened in this same building.
• March, 2020: The pandemic shut us (and everyone else) down for a solid six+ months.
• January, 2021: We became an official 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Since we’re now a bona fide nonprofit organization, it’s time for us to start raising money to support our programming!

We believe in the value of working with your hands, putting down your devices, and really delving into craft and art. From the beginning, our slogan was: “Handcrafting, Building Community, Having Fun!” It has never been our goal to get rich from the folk school, but it would be great if the folk school could ‘graduate’ from a labor of love, to an organization that has a developed infrastructure which can help it survive and thrive for the long haul.

This is where you come in!

Our community is the life blood of our organization, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. However, we are asking you, the people who make up our community, to step up and help support the work of the Duluth Folk School. Please join us by supporting the work we do, of:

• bringing a diverse array of crafts and arts to our community
• providing employment to over one hundred artisans, artists, and instructors
• building a community for like-minded folks who want to make things with their hands
• supporting a culture that values the handmade and the local

Please show your support by donating any amount:

Or you can copy/paste this link in your browser:

https://www.givemn.org/organization/Duluth-Folk-School

Thank you, from your friends at the Duluth Folk School!