#Team Mizzen reflects on a year of surprises, growth — and how to #Thrivein2025.
As the late, great American poet Maya Angelou said, “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
Taking a cue from Dr. Angelou, we paused amidst the rush and clatter of everyday things to reflect on the past year and our own mission. How did we move the needle — and grow? What were the unexpected wins, and joys? And, how can we, as a team and community, thrive?
Looking back, 2024 was a time of growth and resilience. As a recently-incorporated nonprofit with a bold edtech vision, we grew our capacity, welcoming new members to our board and team; rolling out a refreshed website and rebrand; and bringing capacity-building experiences to educators across the country. We grew strategic partnerships, releasing new groundbreaking learning resources with Nickelodeon Our World, Learn Fresh, PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Pulitzer Center — and many more. We hosted national conversations to explore exciting ideas about the future of learning and launched Beyond the Booth to co-design welcoming spaces for youth. And, with community input, we set the stage to strengthen our one-of-a-kind digital learning platform.
This sets the context for our reflections on a year of dynamic new partnerships, packed u-hauls, and starry mountain peaks — of aiming high and navigating that dizzying feeling of taking on the next big thing in order to bring our best to this work.
We are profoundly grateful to you — not only for joining us on this journey — but helping us shape it. We can’t wait to share all that’s new with you in the coming year!
May we all thrive.
What does “thriving” look like, sound like, feel like for Mizzen Education or our community in 2025?
#1: Building Connection + Belonging
“As we continue to connect with the out-of-school time field, the Strategic Innovations and Partnerships team will be focusing on inclusion and belonging throughout all our partnerships. Our goal in 2025 and beyond is to ensure youth and educators have the opportunity to grow and thrive through our learning experiences and resources no matter the environment or circumstances.” — Angelina Garner
“I see thriving for Mizzen looking like continuing to live out the meaning of our name: ‘Mizzen (pronounced miz-uhn), symbolizes our commitment to working “at the middle,” connecting educators with content, quality with equity, and passion with innovation. The Zs at the center of our logo make space for a dotted bridge.’ It stands for Mizzen’s role as a connector that continually builds community and closes gaps — and for the continuous journey of learning itself.” — Kristin Stayer
#2: Prioritizing Growth
“Thriving looks like being aware of, using, and celebrating our personal strengths, while also growing personally and professionally. Speaking for myself, I’ve discovered the joy and empowerment of knowing where my strengths lie and where I can use support or ‘up my game’ if you will. It’s just as powerful to know where we stand to grow as it is to know where we excel! Arriving to this place has been freeing, which is another term for ‘thriving’ when you think about it.” — Carlos Santini
“To me, helping the Mizzen community thrive in 2025 means giving them the tools they need to complete their goals and that requires us to expand our capabilities on the Mizzen platform to meet each educator where they are and support them each day.” — Alex Jergensen
“The education landscape is going to rapidly change in 2025 after the 2024 election; I think thriving for our Mizzen community will look like digging deeper into our networks and resources to support and uplift the work of youth development and getting creative to keep moving our field forward. That may be through unexpected partnerships or grant opportunities or leveraging the thought partnership of another program. I’d love to see our community go deeper in our partnership work together to create a strong coalition of practitioners sharing resources and ideas across the US!” — Hailee Moehnke
#3: Seeing Challenges as Opportunities
“I attended the Florida Afterschool Network conference this year and was quite literally awe-struck by the number of folks who want and need Mizzen to help them meet their professional goals. I was also equally encouraged by the number of folks who had not yet heard of Mizzen. While that isn’t necessarily ideal, it does reinforce Mizzen’s opportunity in another way. If we can combine a world-class set of tools, activities, and outreach, Mizzen can truly become a regular tool in America’s educators’ toolbox.” — Alex Jergensen
“Thriving looks like using technology as an accelerator rather than as a hindrance.” — Anton Nikolov
#4 Generating (+ Finding) Joy
“Thriving will look and sound (and feel!) like focusing on the joy found in out-of-school spaces. We have such a unique opportunity in out-of-school spaces to create intentional and impactful learning experiences for youth, which creates so many moments of joy, success, laughter, and relationship building. Our world definitely needs more joy and time to celebrate what works in OST!” — Hailee Moehnke
“I can say it was unexpected, but in reality, the love and joy I receive from my colleagues in this great work called out-of-school-time shouldn’t surprise me anymore. It was my first time visiting and spending time with the great people of Maine and Kansas, and yet the connections I felt were so immediate. I mean, I had Erin Frati from Maine almost convincing me to move there. That type of connection just makes you happy and grateful. More importantly, it built up my sense of belonging, which is something I’ve always struggled with.” — Carlos Santini
“It’s as important to cultivate joy professionally as personally. For me, this meant meeting a new group of friends who are also foster and adoptive parents. Gratitude feels like too small of a word. Maybe magical works better. One of my friends shared a quote by David Whyte that captures our friendship, ‘The ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.’” — Kristin Stayer
What was an unexpected win or source of joy for you in 2024? (Personal or professional)
#5: Catalyzing Capacity
“Nerdy and technical, but a big win was setting up the platform architecture using a monorepo with shared packages, and getting everything to work cohesively.” — Anton Nikolov
“It was an exciting year of growth and expansion with our partner community. Mizzen Education launched a new partnership with Nickelodeon. The collaboration brought new innovative STEM and Social Awareness & Well-Being resources to the out-of-school community to celebrate Nickelodeon Our World: WorldWide Day of Play. It was the first time that Mizzen Education designed the original curriculum for a partner. We are looking forward to expanding our collaborative curriculum design work in 2025 with new and existing partnerships.” — Angelina Garner
“It’s been incredibly exciting to launch our new Beyond the Booth initiative this year. We’re working directly with educators and students to co-design more welcoming spaces for youth, and make the most of our human-centered booth furnishings. I am so grateful to our partners in Missouri, Texas, and Florida who helped us develop and test this new model.” — Kristin Stayer
#6: Embracing Adventure (+ Snuggling Donkeys)
“I finally got to summit Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower continuous U.S. which had been on my list for many years. Being out in the wilderness, drinking from streams and sleeping under the stars was an absolute source of joy. One of our resupplies was handled by wonderful donkeys from California Breakfast Burritos, a local nonprofit organization educating humans on the importance of donkeys. While getting fresh food was obviously great, snuggling donkeys after being in solitude for days was just so immensely delightful. I am to this day looking at photos of the adventure and am so proud of us for completing it.” — Janine Krause
“I unexpectedly moved! At the start of 2024, I didn’t have any plans to move out of Los Angeles, but after a trip to Minnesota in the summer, I knew that the timing was right to embark on a new adventure, so in the fall of 2024, I packed up a u-haul with my dog and trekked across the Western US to move to Minneapolis. LA was a place of deep growth for me — and I’m so grateful for my time and experiences in the city. The only reason I’m at Mizzen now is because I moved to LA six years ago! However, being back in Minneapolis has created so much joy. Bonus: my dog has gotten to experience huge piles of crunchy leaves, snow, geese, and ducks! I’m incredibly grateful to work for an organization that lives by human-centered principles, and supported and celebrated my unexpected life transition!” — Hailee Moehnke
“Joining the incredible team at Mizzen has been a joy! Having the opportunity to work with great team members, building the platform from the ground up with everyone’s vision, knowing it will have a wide-reaching positive impact.” — Anton Nikolov
#7: Creating Systems + Spaces that Shine
“The very successful audit of our accounting books was a major highlight in 2024. While we have well-organized books that follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (thanks to our amazing accounting firm), it was incredible to finish the audit with zero adjustments and hear that we were among the best firms audited by said auditor. While there are always opportunities for growth, this was amazing since this was my first ever audit, and knowing that I was in charge of building those systems is slightly mind blowing. We built all this from scratch just a little over a year ago. It’s like, ‘We did that!’” — Janine Krause
“I am looking forward to continuing to build collaborative spaces with Mizzen. The work in the Strategic Innovations and Partnerships at Mizzen relies on supporting internal and external systems; I enjoy assessing how that can require less time for organizing tasks and allow more time for creative and collaborative thinking. As someone who enjoys creating and organizing things that factor in the various ways people and organizations work, this is exciting work for me to continue into 2025.” — Sarah Mellon
What skills did you learn or continue to develop in 2024 that you’ll bring with you into 2025?
#8: Upskilling (+ Duck Racing)
“Being a better conversationalist with young people has been a skill that I’ve grown this year. I have my youngest daughter to thank for this. Sofia is a deep person and an old soul. She’s not satisfied with small talk. She wants to know how my day went, what work was like, what I’m going through emotionally, etc. She asks me how my co-workers are doing. It’s just cool to be able to talk trends, but also chop it up on the deep and meaningful stuff, too. Besides, I’ve picked up some serious gen alpha lingo along the way. I mean, it’s a vibe all the time!” — Carlos Santini
“I learned the power of Infrastructure as Code.” — Anton Nikolov
“I changed my role at Mizzen from Data and Systems Manager to Software Engineer. The challenges of my new role are more exciting and interesting and follow the career path I want to pursue. It also feels like it more directly impacts Mizzen users and that provides a better sense of contribution to the community. I am looking forward to continuing to learn the tools we are using for Mizzen and helping make the Mizzen platform the best that it can be to help our users make an impact with youth.” — Kyle Swank
“I have the luxury of learning something new every day [but sometimes] I can get stuck in the details. This year, I was forced to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I was put in charge of creating our Operations Department. Strategizing on a bigger scale and actually applying all that to our overarching organizational goals was sometimes daunting. So, I forced myself to truly learn instead of leaning on pure experience. Another very important skill: I learned how to run underwater, holding a big rubber duck. That is a skill I will cherish for many years to come because it was hilariously fun and a great team-bonding experience. We obviously should have won.” — Janine Krause
There it is. Capacity-building to donkey cuddling: a year full of growth and adventure that highlights how vital creativity, connection, and pursuing big dreams are to our mission and team. We share these reflections, humbled by the trust you place in us and the chance to work alongside you every day to create learning adventures for children and youth that cultivate curiosity, joy, and a love of lifelong learning.
Happy holidays. Let us renew, celebrate, and help our community #Thrivein2025.