This year, many families honored teachers and staff by donating Teacher Tributes. All money donated to thank and honor a teacher goes back to teachers in Fall 2020 via MFEE's Educational Excellence Grants. Above are just a few of the thank yous MFEE has sent to teachers!

Nishuane teacher Ms. Adamo was honored with a virtual bingo toast! Together, families laughed and had a blast, while they raised close to $1,000 to fund MFEE's Fall 2020 Educational Excellence grants. Thank you to Nishuane School for all your support.

Last weekend, MFEE hosted a toast to honor the students, families and teachers in the Global Citizen Project. Renaissance Middle School teacher Amir Doctry was awarded an MFEE Educational Excellence grant for cameras and equipment to allow his students to learn alongside students/teachers from Japan, Russia, Belarus, and Vietnam!

During remote learning, these students navigated different time zones and languages to develop action plans to support the UN Goal of providing a quality education to all in the world. They've now even started their own fund to support their work. Donate to support this next generation of global leaders! https://givebutter.com/doctrytoast

On June 14th, over 300 members of our community came together to talk, listen, learn and plan about issues of race and equity in our schools and community as part of MFEE's America to Me: Real Talk Montclair initiative. In this picture, three subjects of the America to Me documentary - Jada Buford, Dr. Challa Holland, and Jessica Stovall -- talk with MSU professors and facilitators Drs. Tanya Maloney and Bree Picower.

MFEE's TikTok Together Fundraiser brought families together to raise over $17,000 for MFEE's initiatives related to school closures. From MHS teachers to high schoolers to preschoolers, families learned the dance together, and shared their spirit with MFEE and the community. We are so thankful for our brave and talented families, especially our TikTok Titans, The Wawringhams, and the Crowd Favorites, the Fosters and the Eckerts!

THIS! This photo captures so much of what this event is about. Judy Alday, special education teacher at Northeast School, was one of the first people to voice an interest in competing in the inaugural MFEE Amazing FundRACER in 2016 - BUT she couldn't ride a bike. We looked into bike lessons for her, and explored other ways to let her compete to no avail. Judy happily volunteered for EVERY MFEE event since 2016...and FINALLY, this year, she registered to compete for the FundRACER! One of her former students lent her his adult-sized tricycle, and Judy teamed up with our first-ever custodian contestant, Luis Solis to form the fiery hot Team Fuego.

Judy's smile says it all. This race reminds us of the power of a community that can play alongside each other, that can collectively tackle silly, yet challenging tasks, and that can step outside its comfort zone.

PHOTO CREDIT: Thank you to the insanely talented, Chanda Hall for snapping this photo