Save the Date: Monday, March 8 - Colors of MN: Celebrating Diversity through the Arts @ International Market Square

 TORCH Community will be hosting its third and final soft launch event on Monday, March 8th before the official TORCH launch in early May. The event theme is Colors of Minnesota: Celebrating Diversity through the Arts. Our diversity and inclusion partners will have interactive engagement stations where attendees will be able to connect with other attendees as well as connect with diversity partners. The engagement stations will feature yoga instruction, henna painting, writing and performing haikus, collective painting, fashion styling, vision boards, ‘meet an opera singer’ with a makeup artist demonstration. Tempo (Minnesota Opera) will have a drawing for free opera tickets. Arts partners will put on a fashion show featuring local designers/boutiques conceptual couture pieces with runway music provided by the Minnesota Opera. This event is FREE - there will be food and a cash bar. REGISTER HERE.

Event Speakers:

Wing Young Huie – Welcome Speaker | Photographer, Lake Street USA and 9 Months in America: An Ethnocentric Tour | http://www.wingyounghuie.com

Anita Patel – Diversity Speaker | Racial Justice and Public Policy Director, YWCA

Emma Berg – Arts Speaker | local fashion designer, founder of http://www.MPLSart.com

Diversity and Arts Partners:

National Association of Asian American Professionals - Minnesota
Network of Indian Professionals
Urban League Young Professionals
WomenVenture
Tempo (Minnesota Opera)

March Event Sponsors:
Wells Fargo
Free Arts Minnesota

Current Torch Affinity Partners:
Drive (Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce)
Twin West Emerging Leaders (Twin West Chamber of Commerce)
Young Professionals Citizens League
Rotaract – St. Paul
Propel (Jeremiah Program)
United Way Emerging Leaders
Big Brothers/Big Sisters
Capital Community Alliance
Surge
National Association of Asian American Professionals - Minnesota
Network of Indian Professionals
Urban League Young Professionals
WomenVenture
Tempo (Minnesota Opera)

Event Schedule:

5:30 – 6:30 PM: Mix & Mingle

6:30 – 6:35 PM: Opening Remarks – Abhi Jain, Torch Diversity Chair

6:35 – 6:45 – Welcome Speaker | Wing Young Huie, Local Artist

6:45 – 7:30 PM: Engagement I – Diversity Stations (During engagement stations, attendees will be asked ‘How do we get young professionals and diverse young professionals to become young patrons of the arts?’

7:30 – 7:40 PM: Diversity Speaker | Anita Patel, Racial Justice and Public Policy Director, YWCA

7:45 – 8:10 PM: Artistic performance – Fashion show with ‘walkway’ music by Opera Singers and arts speaker, Emma Berg, local fashion designer

8:10 – 8:30 PM: Engagement II - The engagement partners will come forward to present ‘elevator speech’ about their organization and results from Engagement I questions.

8:30 – 8:35 PM: Awarding of the ‘big idea’ for young donors – Andrea Satter, Free Arts Minnesota

8:35 – 8:45 PM: Closing Remarks and details on Torch Main Launch event in May – Alex Lopes, Torch Executive Director

Engagement Stations:

Network of Indian Professionals - Yoga instruction and henna painting

WomenVenture - Vision Boards (like story boards)

Urban League Young Professionals - Fashion styling station

Tempo - Meet Opera singers, makeup demonstration, opera ticket giveaways

Free Arts Minnesota - Collective Painting

National Association of Asian American Professionals – MN – Writing and performing of haikus

Fashion Show:
Styled by Jahna Peloquin
Designers and Boutiques:
Elsworth
Music: Minnesota Opera

Past Torch Events:
Currently, Torch is in the process of having three soft launches before our official launch in May 2010. The first soft launch on the theme of career development took place October 7th. Our second soft launch event on the theme of social responsibility took place on December 9th. The third soft launch event on the themes of diversity and the arts is scheduled for March 8, 2010. The purpose of these soft launches are to establish proof of concept and to measure results. We want to make sure we are actually effective in connecting disconnected people. We are seeking to build a relational community through engineered events, helping to connect young professionals to each other and our partner organizations.

On the evening of October 7th, Torch hosted the first of our three soft launches at the International Market Square. The career development event was organized by our Catalyst partner organizations, Drive (Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce), Twin West Emerging Leaders (Twin West Chamber of Commerce) and the Citizens League. Stephanie Lilak, VP and Chief Staffing Officer of General Mills, and Mark Gasche, Career Development Director at Capella, spoke on how to get the job you want, and keep the job you have in a down economy. Isiah Reese, Director at Disney and motivational speaker, moderated the panelist discussion.

On December 9th, Torch hosted the second soft launch event with a focus on the theme of social responsibility. Our young professional SR partners for that event were Propel (Jeremiah Program), Everyday Advocates (Big Brothers, Big Sisters), Community Capital Alliance, Emerging Leaders (Twin Cities United Way) and Surge. This unique event brought together attendees to problem solve how to get young professionals involved in social responsibility in the Twin Cities. There was a challenge event where tables competed against each other to submit the winning solution as awarded by our panel of judges.

TORCH is an exciting new young professionals social networking organization in the Twin Cities designed to bring young professionals from all industries together to network, develop professionally and become actively engaged in the community. We are connecting people into existing young professional groups under four values: Catalyst (Career Development), Good Life (Social Responsibility), Mosaic (Diversity and Inclusion) and the Arts.