You are just the kind of person the Sullivan Ballou Fund seeks to recognize and affirm. You have committed both your professional life and your home life to children. For many years you have shared your professional teaching skills, knowledge, energy and HIGH expectations with elementary school students. You have taught many children at risk, first in the Minneapolis public schools on the north side and more recently at Forest Hills Elementary School in Eden Prairie, which has a high percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches. Early on at Forest Hills, you distinguished yourself by utilizing the latest research, which allowed all of your students to achieve 100% proficiency in reading. These stellar reading scores brought you much deserved attention, including the Eden Prairie Teacher of the Year Award in 2008 and the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce Golden Apple Award for outstanding instructional achievement.
Your success as a teacher soon brought you into the areas of policy and training. You provided state legislators with critical testimony and guidance on reading reform that resulted in the successful passage of Minnesota’s reading legislation in 2009. For the past few years, you have served as educational coordinator at Forest Hills Elementary with a focus on training and educating the school staff in instructional achievement for all students.
Surrounded by children by day, you come home to a houseful of five more: Sarah (6), Lauren (4), Chelsea (4), Benjamin (2), and Elise (2).. The two youngest children are yet another testimony to your open heart and generosity. You and your wife Kristen decided from a very deep spiritual place that you would adopt Benjamin and Elise from an orphanage in Haiti well before the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010. You lived the horror of watching the earthquake devastate the walls of the orphanage but never gave up hope of bringing Ben and Elise to safety. Finally, just this week on January 25th, you and Kristen held your newest children in your loving arms, surrounded by their three new siblings.
Day and night, you offer your gifts of love and passion to children.
We are honored to be able to recognize this life of love and service to children with this modest award. You perfectly reflect the energy Sullivan Ballou expressed so clearly—that action from the heart, without personal agenda or hope of reward, is what accomplishes great things. You are a model for what each of us can do with that spirit.
This award is yours to use as you choose—for some helpful training or materials in your work, for a little well-deserved rest and recreation, or maybe just to buy some toddler toys and outfits. We would appreciate your letting us know in about six months how you used this award and how it affected you. Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson
Susan and Dean Thomson