More Than a Workshop: How Lasting Relationships Help Students Grow
How lasting relationships help students grow, year after year.
“It’s so nice to see a familiar face.”
Program Manager Brandon Herring still remembers hearing those words from a student on the first day of high school.
He first met the student as a sixth grader. Three years later, standing outside a ninth-grade classroom, he was continuing a relationship that had been growing through years of monthly Project Success workshops.
“When they saw me standing outside the door,” Brandon recalls, “they were like, ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see a familiar face.'”
That moment captures something that has always been central to Project Success.
Every month, our facilitators partner with classroom teachers to lead interactive workshops that help students build confidence, strengthen relationships, explore future possibilities, and connect to their purpose. Those classroom workshops are the foundation of our work, connecting to everything else students experience through Project Success, from theater and expeditions to college tours, career exploration, and certificate courses.
During the 2025–26 school year, Project Success facilitators led 4,570 classroom workshops across 24 middle and high schools in Minneapolis and Mankato. For many students, the facilitator leading those workshops wasn’t someone they had just met; it was someone who had been part of their journey for years.
Those workshops aren’t meant to stand alone. They’re designed as a journey that builds from sixth grade through graduation, helping students develop new skills and explore new questions as they grow. And when students have the opportunity to work with the same facilitator over multiple years, those shared experiences create an even deeper foundation for learning and trust.
The curriculum grows each year.
So do the relationships.
“You can’t really get anywhere without trust.”
“The more we stay consistent with our programming with a student, the more opportunities they have to grow and the more opportunities they have to learn more about themselves,” says Laura Garcia, Senior Director of Minneapolis Programs. “The impact of having a long-term relationship is more trust is built. And you can’t really get anywhere without trust.”
That philosophy shapes every workshop we lead.
Rather than repeating the same lessons each year, our curriculum is intentionally designed to grow alongside students. Sixth grade focuses on building community and dreaming about the future. Seventh grade helps students begin turning those dreams into goals. Eighth grade prepares students for leadership and the transition to high school. As students continue through high school, the conversations evolve with them, helping students make decisions, explore opportunities, and prepare for life after graduation.
We keep asking the same big questions:
Who are you today?
What matters to you now?
What do you want your future to look like?
The answers are supposed to change as the students grow and change.
Brandon believes those long-term relationships matter because students benefit from having another consistent presence in their lives, especially during times of transition. Whether they’re beginning middle school, entering high school, or preparing for graduation, they know they’re walking into a classroom with someone who already knows them.
Building on Shared Experiences
For Senior Program Manager Micah Peterson-Brandt, one of the greatest advantages of staying with students over multiple years is being able to build on experiences they’ve already shared.
By eighth grade, he can reference the “Magic Cup” workshop students completed in sixth grade and ask whether the dreams they shared then are still the dreams they have today. By senior year, he can revisit conversations from freshman year because he was there when they happened.
Those shared experiences become part of the relationship.
“The ‘we’ isn’t Project Success,” Micah says. “It gets to be ‘we, me and you.'”
That shared history changes the workshop experience. Facilitators aren’t introducing new ideas in isolation. They’re building on years of conversations, experiences, and growth they’ve shared with students along the way.
More Than a Program
For Senior Facilitator Alana McQuirter, one of the greatest privileges of the job is seeing students through different chapters of their lives.
Over the years, she’s welcomed students into middle school workshops, reconnected with them in high school, and even had students she first met on a Boundary Waters trip as middle schoolers end up in her classroom years later as seniors.
That continuity allows her to continue relationships and conversations from one year to the next.
“We’re really able to pick up where we left off,” Alana says. “We can recognize where students have grown… and even where they can be stronger leaders.”
For Alana, that’s one of the greatest strengths of Project Success. Students don’t experience the same workshop every year. They experience new conversations, new challenges, and new opportunities with someone who already knows their story.
Then one day, a teacher introduced her to a classroom as someone from Project Success.
Before Alana could respond, one of the students interrupted.
“Oh, no, no, no,” the student said. “That’s Auntie.”
Alana laughs when she tells the story, but for her it captured exactly what years of consistency can create.
The student wasn’t talking about Project Success.
They were talking about a relationship.
And that’s exactly what this work is all about.
