Susie and Pete Oppenheim Travel Study Fund

Support the Oppenheim Travel Study Fund!

Southside Family School started as a dream of Susie and Pete Oppenheim back in 1974. After 50 years, Southside Family School continues to offer innovative and social justice-oriented education to children in the Twin Cities. 

Initiated by Susie and Pete Oppenheim, travel study has been a core offering of Southside Family School for decades. After a necessary pause due to COVID-19, we have reinstated this program. But we need your help to ensure travel study continues for years to come!

Help us raise $300,000 to create a lasting legacy of travel study and enable us to send our middle schoolers on travel study trips to experience the living history of movements for racial and economic justice. 

Pete and Susie’s leadership helped build and sustain a school with its own rhythm. The rhythm you feel is the pulse of our unique community. Multi-aged groups learning together, independent choice in topics explored, creative arts, restorative practices, peer leadership and one of the most diverse staff in any Minnesota school. 

We know that when children have the opportunity to see, feel, and experience living history right in front of them, the lessons will last a lifetime.

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Southside Family School and we are honoring the legacy of Susie and Pete Oppenheim. This milestone is an invitation for reflection, celebration, and dreaming. To support each of these important actions, our theme this year is Honoring Our History and Dreaming Our Future.  

Southside's history holds the legacy of an unwavering commitment to social justice, small class sizes that nurture deep relationships and connection, and a travel study program that has supported our students’, staff’s, and community’s understanding of the history of this country, the labor of freedom dreaming, the organization of social movement and change, and the power of people. 

Make your gift today, thank you!

Gifts to Southside Family School can be made in ways that best meet your planning needs. 

To donate via check, please mail your gift to: Oppenheim Travel Study Fund, c/o Southside Family School, 4500 Clinton Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN 55419. 

Gifts of appreciated stock can be made through RBC Wealth Management. Senior Vice-President Darla Kashian can help with stock gifts. She can be reached at 612-371-7696 or darla.kashian@rbc.com. Many donors have been making gifts by directly donating assets from their IRA accounts. The new IRS limit for 2024 is $105,000. Many long-time Southside supporters have donor advised funds, and we’ve been fortunate to receive distributions from family funds and foundations.