Why Giving Matters
Stories and stats illustrate Mia’s impact on visitors and communities. Work made possible by your generosity. Here are some of the ways your financial contributions are helping Mia inspire wonder through the power of art
Impact Stories 2021
Mia is Now
on March 24, 2020, the day before Minnesota’s shelter-in-place order, Piotr Szyhalski went into his basement studio and began drawing. When he finished, he had an image of a severed head, plants sprouting from the eye sockets, with the hand-lettered phrase “Long Live Our Banks!” He posted it to Instagram.
Mia is Empowering
In March 2021, Hannah Puffer dropped by the museum with her daughter, Sofia, 9, and son, Lewyn, 7. Still in the throes of the pandemic, the museum galleries were closed. Yet a table in the lobby was set up, where each child scored a fun takeaway: a Family Day Art Tote.
Mia is Inclusion
When Pieter Valk travels, he follows his stomach. On a recent trip to the Twin Cities, the Nashville resident and his friends ate their way across town. So when a local contact told him that Mia was a must-visit, he took a tasting-sampler approach. “I want to be a person who enjoys art,” he says. “It’s like learning to like coffee, or whiskey, or sushi. It’s something I’m not used to enjoying.”
Mia is Community
When the museum reopened last summer, after closing for several months to slow the spread of Covid-19, Sandra Pietron was the first visitor through the doors. And when the museum reopened again this winter, after closing over the holidays, she was again the first in line. “I’m a morning person,” she says, shrugging. But she is also a Mia person, devoted to a place she calls “her temple.”
Past Impact Stories
IMPACT STORIES 2020
IMPACT STORIES 2019
