Financial Education Workshops
2025-02-13 09:30 - 11:30, 2025-02-27 13:00 - 15:00, 2025-03-13 09:30 - 11:30, 2025-03-27 13:00 - 15:00, 2025-04-10 09:30 - 11:30, 2025-04-24 13:00 - 15:00, 2025-05-08 09:30 - 11:30, 2025-05-22 13:00 - 15:00 (America/Chicago) and 2 more dates
This month, the Karen Organization of Minnesota is hosting financial education workshops online for free to learn about setting financial goals, budgeting, and other important topics.
Upcoming workshops:
Budgeting Workshop: Thurs, May 22nd, 1-3 p.m. ONLINE
Credit Workshop: Thurs, June 12th, 9:30-11:30 a.m. ONLINE
Savings Workshop: Thurs, June 26th, 1-3 p.m. ONLINE
Sign-Up:
Complete this form to register for an online financial workshop. After you submit the form, you will receive an email with the link to join.
Our workshops are open to Minnesota residents. Additional individual coaching services from KOM are available to residents of the Twin Cities Metro Area.
If you choose to participate in the workshop, you may receive a $25 gift card for attending and participating fully. To receive a gift card, you will be asked to show proof of your name and that you are Minnesota residents.
With questions, please contact Latyran Adams
Ladams@mnkaren.org | 651-815-6844

Free Karen Organization of Minnesota Financial Coaching Program
Our Financial Employer Resource Navigators (FERNS) can help you make financial decisions that help you manage your expenses now and create pathways to build assets for the future. Our FERNS can help you create a budget, understand and rebuild your credit, strategies to pay off debt, and build and savings plan to help you reach your financial goals. In addition, our FERNS support you with career planning, access to job training programs to support you with increasing your employer wage and assist you with job preparation and placement to stabilize your situation.
To schedule an appointment
If you have questions about Financial Coaching Program, please email ladams@mnkaren.org.

KOM Volunteer Info Sessions
2025-02-14 10:00 - 10:30, 2025-03-14 10:00 - 10:30
Join us for a short 30 minute volunteer info session to hear about current and upcoming volunteer needs with the Karen Organization of Minnesota. There will be a time for questions and an opportunity to sign up to volunteer at the end of the session!
Sign-Up:
Register for one of our upcoming sessions here on Zoom.
Sessions this winter:
Friday, January 10th, 10:00am – 10:30am
Friday, February 14th, 10:00am – 10:30am
Friday, March 14th, 10:00am – 10:30am

Karen Culture Presentation - ONLINE!
2025-02-21 11:00 - 12:30, 2025-04-18 11:00 - 12:30, 2025-06-20 11:00 - 12:30, 2025-08-15 11:00 - 12:30
Are you interested in learning more about Karen (K’nyaw) culture? Join us for our Karen Culture Presentation online every other month.
During this presentation, participants with learn about the Karen (K’nyaw) history, culture, and resettlement in the U.S. We will explore the history of the Karen and how they became refugees, and discuss how the Karen have adapted to life in the U.S. We will also give a brief overview of Karen culture, covering everything from food, to clothing, to family, to communication styles, and more. Come with open ears and any questions.
This presentation will be delivered online. RSVP on Zoom to one of our upcoming sessions to receive the link:
RSVP here
*Suggested donation of $15 to help cover staff time and preparation:
Donate here
Want to request a presentation for a different date tailored to your group? Please see our Karen Culture Presentations page for more details and to fill out a request.

Tea With KOM
2025-04-17 15:30 - 16:30, 2025-05-15 18:30 - 19:30, 2025-06-19 15:30 - 16:30
Join us for a new podcast-style series, Tea With KOM, where our Development Director, Alice, sits down with guest speakers from within KOM to discuss community stories, news, and other important topics. This engaging and informative session will give you an inside look at the work KOM is doing and how it impacts the community. Whether you’re a long-time supporter or new to KOM, this is the perfect opportunity to learn, engage, and connect.

Click here to join on Zoom

Upcoming Sessions:
Thursday, April 17th, 3:30 – 4:30pm
Guest Speaker: Suzanne Olive, KOM Volunteer Coordinator
Topic: April is National Volunteer Appreciation Month! Join us to hear about the impact volunteers have had on KOM throughout the years and what they’ve been up to this year. Suzanne is excited to tell you about the incredible people who have given time and skills to KOM’s mission. Suzanne has worked at KOM since 2017, starting as an AmeriCorps VISTA. Throughout the years, she’s helped coordinate KOM’s volunteer program, oversee communications and outreach presentations, and develop paid internship positions.
Thursday, May 15th, 6:30 – 7:30pm
Topic: May is Mental Health Awareness Month

လါ​မ့ၤ​ (ဒ့ၣ်​ညါ​) မ့ၣ်​ဝဲ​ဒၣ်​ သး​ဒီး​တၢ်​ဆိ​က​မိၣ်​ တၢ်​အိၣ်​ဆူၣ်​အိၣ်​ချ့​တၢ်​ပာ်​သူၣ်​ပာ်​သး​အ​လါ​

Join us for a vital conversation on Zoom with KOM health program staff this Mental Health Action Day on Thursday, May 15th, 2025.

Conversation topics:
What are the mental health challenges for our community?

What free programs and services are available at KOM or locally in response to these challenges?

How can I get involved as a volunteer?
What are some easy ways to improve our daily mental wellbeing?

ဟဲ​နုာ်​လီၤ​က​တိၤ​သ​ကိး​တၢ်​ဒီး​ပ​ဝဲ​ က​ညီ​က​ရၢ​မဲၣ်​နံၣ်​စိ​ထၣ်​ KOM, တၢ်​အိၣ်​ဆူၣ်​အိၣ်​ချ့​ပှၤ​တ​ဝၢ​ပှၤ​မၤ​တၢ်​ဖိ​တ​ဖၣ်​လၢ​ Zoom (စူ​မ်​) အ​ပူၤ​ လၢ​သး​ဒီး​တၢ်​ဆိ​က​မိၣ်​တၢ်​အိၣ်​ဆူၣ်​အိၣ်​ချ့​တၢ်​ဟူး​တၢ်​ဂဲၤ​မုၢ်​နံၤ​လၢ​ မုၢ်​လွံၢ်​နံၤ​ (မုၢ်​ပျဲၤ​), လါ​မ့ၤ​ (ဒ့ၣ်​ညါ​) ၥ၅​သီ​, ၂​ဝ၂၅​ န့ၣ်​တ​က့ၢ်​.

တၢ်​ဂ့ၢ်​လၢ​တၢ်​က​စံး​က​တိၤ​သ​ကိး​အ​ခိၣ်​တီ​တ​ဖၣ်​:

တၢ်​ကီ​တၢ်​ခဲ​လၢ​အ​ဘၣ်​ထွဲ​လိာ်​ဃုာ်​ဒီး​သး​ဒီး​တၢ်​ဆိ​က​မိၣ်​တၢ်​အိၣ်​ဆူၣ်​အိၣ်​ချ့​လၢ​ပ​ပှၤ​တ​ဝၢ​အ​ပူၤ​န့ၣ်​မ့ၢ်​မ​နုၤ​သ့ၣ်​တ​ဖၣ်​လဲၣ်​?

လၢ​တၢ်​က​ဘှါ​ဆှဲ​တၢ်​ဂ့ၢ်​ကီ​သ့ၣ်​တ​ဖၣ်​အံၤ​အ​ဂီၢ်​, က​ညီ​က​ရၢ​မဲၣ်​နံၣ်​စိ​ထၣ်​ KOM, မ့​တ​မ့ၢ်​ လၢ​လီၢ်​က​ဝီၤ​ပူၤ​, တၢ်​ရဲၣ်​တၢ်​ကျဲၤ​ဒီး​တၢ်​ဆီၣ်​ထွဲ​မၤ​စၢၤ​အ​ကျိၤ​အ​ကျဲ​ န​ဒိး​န့ၢ်​အီၤ​သ့​ လၢ​တ​လၢာ်​အ​ပှ့ၤ​အ​က​လံၤ​မ့ၢ်​မ​နုၤ​ သ့ၣ်​တ​ဖၣ်​လဲၣ်​.

ယ​မၤ​သ​ကိး​တၢ်​ဒ်​ပှၤ​မၤ​တၢ်​လၢ​တၢ်​သး​အိၣ်​မုာ်​သး​မၤ​စၢၤ​တၢ်​တ​ဂၤ​အ​သိး​က​သ့​ဒ်​လဲၣ်​?

ကျဲ​လၢ​အ​ညီ​က​တၢၢ်​လၢ​က​မၤ​ဂ့ၤ​ထီၣ်​ပ​သး​တၢ်​ဆိ​က​မိၣ်​တၢ်​အိၣ်​ဆူၣ်​အိၣ်​ချ့​န့ၣ်​မ့ၢ်​တၢ်​မ​နုၤ​လဲၣ်​?

Thursday, June 19th, 3:30 – 4:30pm
Topic: Continuing the Conversation about Mental Health in the Karen Community
Join our Development Director and one of our community health staff for a casual conversation about mental health challenges for our community, with time for questions and meaningful discussion.

How to Join
These sessions will be delivered online on Zoom and are open to everyone, no RSVP needed. All we ask is that you join in the first 15 minutes. Join on Zoom here.
Our Tea With KOM sessions are completely free to tune into and we encourage all to join us.
With questions, contact Alice Buckner.

Apprentice Ready Info Sessions
2025-04-18 09:00 - 11:00, 2025-05-23 09:00 - 11:00 | Karen Organization of Minnesota, 2353 Rice Street, Suite 240, Roseville, MN, 55113, United States
Interested in exploring a career path? Join us for an Information Session for our Apprentice Ready programs at the Karen Organization of Minnesota. You’ll get all the details about our program options and the jobs you can do in the trades after completing our training.

Meet at KOM on Friday at 9 a.m. on April 18 or May 23!
Sign up here to let us know you’re coming and receive a reminder email.

Karenni Kay Htoe Boe Festival
2025-04-19 10:00 - 18:00, 2025-04-20 08:00 - 21:00 | Como Park Senior High, 740 Rose Ave W, St Paul, MN, 55117, United States
The Karenni Community of Minnesota is hosting their Kay Htoe Boe celebration on April 19th. Check out their flyers below and Facebook page for more information.

Schedule of Events:
Saturday, April 19th
10:00am: Main Ceremony
3:00pm: Entertainment
Location: Como Park Senior High
Sunday, April 20th
8:00am – 9:00pm
Volleyball Tournament
Location: North Dale Recreation Center

The Karenni people are known as the “Red Karen” and live in a small, mountainous region to the north of Karen State and west of Thailand. There are over a dozen ethnic Karenni subgroups, but they all speak the same language (with only small variations in dialect). The most important celebration for Karenni people is Kay Htoe Bo. This festival reflects the story on how the earth came into being. During the celebration, Karenni people dance around a pole in order to maintain good health.

World Refugee Day Concert
2025-06-20 18:30 - 21:00 | PILLLAR Forum Cafe & Bar, 2300 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN, 55418, United States
In honor of World Refugee Day, Songs for a New Home is putting on a benefit concert to support the Karen Organization of Minnesota on Friday, June 20th, 2025 at Pilllar Forum and Cafe in Minneapolis. There will also be Afghan food from The Thyme Machine food truck!

Artists
Featuring artists from Afghanistan, Minnesota, Myanmar, Venezuela, and more.
Artists include: Sentir Venezolano, Ywa Hay Moo, Eh Ler Tha & Eh Wah, Ti Ter Ha Min, Rebaca Moo, Peace Music, The Taxpayers
Tickets
Get tickets to the event here.
Tickets are $15, and limited to capacity at the cafe.
Livestream
The concert will also be livestreamed for viewers to watch and listen from home!
Click this link any time between now and the day of the concert on June 20th at 7:00pm CT, or watch on YouTube below:

For listeners who want to donate to KOM while watching, you can either click the link in the YouTube video description or use the QR code that’s on the thumbnail. To do that, you point your phone’s camera at the QR code and tap the word “open”, or take a screenshot of the QR code and then tap on the picture of the QR code.
Date, Time, & Location
Friday, June 20th, 2025
Doors open at 6:30pm, music starts at 7:00pm
Location: PILLLAR Forum Cafe & Bar, 2300 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55418
About Songs for a New Home
Information from their website:
Songs for a New Home is a coalition of musicians from around the world that want to help fund refugee support organizations.. 100% of all funds raised go to projects that help refugee families settle into their new homes.
Here’s how Songs for a New Home works:
We release a new song from a different artist every month via our website, Patreon, and an email newsletter. Subscribers 1) receive new music by an international musician each month, and 2) get to help support a small organization doing great work on behalf of refugee families. Folks can become subscribers for anywhere from a dollar per month to, well, infinity.
Funds are set up to be delivered each month directly to our recipient’s Paypal account in order to make things easy and transparent.

Karen Weavers at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
2025-07-02 - 2025-07-07 | Smithsonian Institution, 600 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC, 20024, United States
Our Karen Weaving Circle are participating in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. from July 2nd through July 7th, 2025.
This year’s theme is Youth and the Future of Culture. Our weavers will be part of the Learning Together exhibit, demonstrating how they pass down the tradition of Karen back-strap weaving to the next generation of Karen youth.
Learning Together
Read the description of the learning together exhibit from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival website:

“If our people are alive, our traditions still need to be alive.”
—Rosie Say

“It is important to me to keep our family’s traditions going.”
—Lila Delgado

“Young people often find their time structured by the daily and seasonal rhythms of formal school, from pre-K to the end of high school and the beginnings of adulthood. Yet school is hardly the only place that emerging artists and artisans learn.
Family businesses, apprenticeships, camps, and community organizations create spaces for other kinds of learning. Whether in formal programs or through informal meetings with neighbors and family friends, these extracurricular teaching relationships ensure that traditional knowledge and skills are passed from generation to generation.
Making is a way of coming to know things: environments, histories, and ways of living and belonging. In such settings, creative skills are connected with ways of life and enduring values. When people gather together to weave, when ranchers use the tools their loved ones or neighbors have made to earn their living, and when makers and musicians pull sounds out of handcrafted instruments, the stories of families and communities are told and retold.
In the Learning Together area at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, see family and community workshops come to life on the National Mall. Learn how handmade objects—and the skills and stories behind them—contribute to distinctive ways of life and cultural legacies across the United States.”
About Our Karen Weaving Circle

The Karen Weaving Circle is a group of refugee weavers who came together to revive their textile tradition after moving to the United States. Members meet at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to weave together and to hold classes for the next generation of Karen artisans. As a program of the Karen Organization of Minnesota, the Weaving Circle enhances community wellbeing and builds bonds between elder and younger generations around culture, language, and craft. The weavers also participate regularly in art fairs and community events as well as presentations in public schools.
Karen (pronounced kuh-REN) people from Burma (Myanmar) in Southeast Asia are a linguistically and culturally diverse people, who are among the refugees displaced due to government suppression of minorities. Around 20,000 Karen people live in Minnesota.
Participants going to D.C.

Aye Lwai, weaver
Htee Hser, weaver
Ku Say, weaver
Mae Ra Paw, weaver
Rosie Say, weaver
Hta Thi Yu Moo, presenter
Synthia Htoo, presenter

Livestream Presentation from DC about Karen food
Our weavers and staff will be giving a presentation at the festival about how to make Tak Ka Paw, a Karen rice porridge dish. Not in DC? You can watch the livestream of their foodways presentation on Sunday, July 6th at 11:00 am CT/12:00pm ET at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/live/cwzxO-w9wro?si=fH5hSl_6VhPcdoSn

75th Commemoration of Karen Martyrs’ Day
2025-08-09 - 2025-08-10 | Todd Park, 11th Street and, 21st Ave NE, Austin, MN, 55912, United States
Please save the dates for the 75th Commemoration of Karen Martyrs’ Day in Minnesota, currently planned for the weekend of August 9th and 10th. More information to come soon as the community prepares for this important gathering.

Significance of Karen Martyrs’ Day
The official Karen Martyrs’ Day is on August 12 and commemorates the anniversary of the death of Saw Ba U Gyi (one of the early leaders of the Karen National Union) in 1950. Others who have fought for the Karen are also honored in remembrance of the Karen resistance.
Karen Martyrs’ Day is an opportunity to reflect on the history of the Karen people and honor the leaders who have guided their struggle for freedom and democracy in Myanmar. It is an upbeat occasion emphasizing togetherness and community health, an opportunity for Karen to pass on traditions to the younger generation.
Event Details
This year in Minnesota, the Karen Martyrs’ Day Celebration will be held at Todd Park in Austin, Minnesota. There is a $5 entrance fee for everyone age 15 and older. Please see the flyer above for details about the sports competition, which will include volleyball, soccer, and caneball.

Karen Traditional Wrist Tying Ceremony
2025-08-16 - 2025-08-17 | 43695 Peaceful Vally RD, Harris, MN 55032, 43695 Peaceful Valley Rd, Harris, MN, 55032, United States
Save the date for the Karen Traditional Wrist Tying Ceremony on August 16–17, 2025 in Harris, MN, organized by the Karen Culture Organization of Minnesota. (Visit their Facebook page and their website for more details and updates).
Come celebrate culture, unity, and tradition with music, dance, food, and community!
Location: 43695 Peaceful Valley Rd, Harris, MN
Interested in sponsoring the event and tabling? The Karen Culture Organization of Minnesota is collecting sponsorship applications and ask that you fill out their sponsorship request form here: Wrist Tying Ceremony Sponsors Invitation – KCOM. If you have questions about the event, please contact Kyaw Kyaw Lwin of the Karen Culture Organization of Minnesota at 651-417-2650 or karenculture.mn@gmail.com.

Learn More about Karen Wrist-Tying Ceremony at: https://mnkaren.org/history-culture/karen-culture/celebrations/ under the Karen Community Events.

Apprentice Ready+ Info Sessions
2025-08-26 09:00 - 10:00, 2025-08-29 09:00 - 10:00, 2025-09-02 09:00 - 10:00 | Karen Organization of Minnesota, 2353 Rice Street, Suite 240, Roseville, MN, 55113, United States
Graduates from our recent summer 2025 short-term training.
Do you want to earn your high school diploma and prepare for work in construction? KOM’s Apprentice Ready Program is for you! Read more about the program here.

Come to KOM for one of our information sessions to learn more about the classes and how you can enroll. There are four sessions to choose from, all in-person at the KOM office:

Tuesday, August 26, at 9 a.m.
Friday, August 29, at 9 a.m.
Tuesday September 2, at 9 a.m.
Friday September 5, at 9 a.m.

Sign up for which one you will attend. Click here to sign up!
