Reach Out and Read Minnesota Spring Breakfast Benefit 2023

Watch our May 9th Spring Benefit breakfast this year celebrating the transformational power of literacy!

From text messages to utility bills, from podcasts to job applications, the modern world we live in is built on words. Our ability to understand, use, and navigate this world of words—a skill we call literacy—is fundamental to anyone's ability to live a healthy, happy, and successful life. We know that when we empower our youngest children with the brain-building power of books along loving, language-rich interactions with their parents and caregivers, we are setting them up for success in their future. When we support our young learners in the crucial years of life, we give them a chance to write the stories of their own lives.

Watch the recording above of our celebration of the transformational power of literacy. We are joined by leaders in the fields of childhood development, education, business, and healthcare, to learn from one another and discuss how we can best support our state's youngest learners to build a better future for all of Minnesota. Programming includes a keynote address from Dr. Artika Tyner, words from our special guest, author Curtis Sittenfeld, and updates from Reach Out and Read Minnesota leadership and our outstanding network of healthcare providers.

Dr. Artika Tyner

Dr. Artika Tyner is committed to creating a world of inclusive leaders who will meet the pressing needs of today and work towards a better future where racial justice and economic justice reign supreme. As a motivational speaker, author and educator, Dr. Tyner helps people of all ages connect with their gifts and develop tangible tools for bringing forth sustainable, durable change in the family, workplace, community or school. By building and leveraging the tools in The Inclusive Leader she has inspired thousands of people to lead with their own gifts and plant a seed of social change.

Dr. Tyner’s work is grounded in extensive experience as a law and leadership professor, lawyer, social change agent, researcher and nonprofit founder and leader. She is well-known as a thought leader, author and designer of high-profile programs to drive organizational DEI initiatives and create inclusive leaders. Her impact spans Fortune 500 companies, start up tech companies, healthcare providers, government services and agencies, higher education institutions and grassroots organizations.

Dr. Tyner is deftly able to ask the big questions, strategically innovate real solutions and then lead the way. She intentionally invests her time and energy in inspiring change and welcomes opportunities to present, collaborate and innovate with key stakeholders seeking to impact social change and do what no one has done before.
Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of six novels, including Prep, American Wife, Eligible and Rodham, and one story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It. Her seventh novel, Romantic Comedy, will be published in April 2023. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, EW, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, picked for Reese Witherspoon's book club, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories anthology, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.

Photo by Jenn Ackerman.