{"id":270812,"date":"2026-06-18T13:41:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/270812\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T13:41:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:41:51","slug":"brooklyn-park-teacher-taking-1000-mile-mississippi-river-canoe-trip-to-help-students-experience-the-outdoors-the-mighty-790-kfgo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/270812\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Park teacher taking 1,000 mile Mississippi River canoe trip to help students experience the outdoors | The Mighty 790 KFGO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

PixelsAway \/ Depositphotos.com<\/p>\n

BROOKYLN PARK, Minn (WCCO Radio) \u2013 A local elementary teacher has chosen an unusual way to raise money for his students.<\/p>\n

Tyler Sassaman, a reading specialist at Prairie Seeds Academy, a Hmong charter school in Brooklyn Park, is embarking on a lengthy canoe trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis summer I\u2019m going to paddle the upper section of the Mississippi which is 1,000 miles from the headwaters of Itasca, all the way down to Hannibal, Missouri, which is the birthplace of Samuel Clemens,\u201d says Sassaman.<\/p>\n

That person, of course, is better known as Mark Twain.<\/p>\n

Now, Huck Finn\u2019s adventures didn\u2019t actually include canoeing, and he sure didn\u2019t use his trip as a fundraiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis money is to go to outdoor education, get kids outdoors in a safe way, back to connecting with each other, and connecting with the natural world,\u201d explains Sassaman.<\/p>\n

The 50 day journey serves as a personal challenge, but also serves a good cause, after a difficult time for many of his students.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaise money to support kids at my school at Prairie Seeds Academy, a Hmong charter school in Brooklyn Park with the Operation Metro Surge and the ICE activities,\u201d he adds. \u201cA lot of kids were staying home and just generally disconnected from their peers and families were also isolated. And so this money is to go to outdoor education.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the one aspect of the trip he\u2019s not looking forward to? It\u2019s one we can all related to: the bugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PixelsAway \/ Depositphotos.com BROOKYLN PARK, Minn (WCCO Radio) \u2013 A local elementary teacher has chosen an unusual way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-270812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}