Keith Lipert's Blog

Last thursday, I had the wonderful opportunity to host a NFTE event at my gallery! For those who do not know, NFTE stands for the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship www.nfte.com. Their mission is to inspire young individuals from low income communities to value their education by staying in school and then recognizing business opportunities that exist while planning for a successful future. NFTE began their journey in 1987 and were founded by a former math teacher named Steve Mariotti. His idea was to prevent drop outs and help students improve their academic standings. Steve caught on to something amazing: that students from low income communities tend to have innate “street smarts” which often can be translated into fantastic business making skills. NFTE has had an amazing impact on students helping them realize the value of staying in school. It was for these reasons I jumped at the opportunity to do an event with them.

In Washington D.C., NFTE is represented by the wonderful Julie Kantor. In discussing with Julie, we thought it would be lovely to do something for the “Women of NFTE”, something that would be joyful, an opportunity to meet and enjoy a fun evening .

Over fifty women of NFTE showed up! It was a great evening. The Bobbi Brown team from Chevy Chase were on hand to do make up and touch ups. The ladies enjoyed champagne, food, and playing dress up with our exquisite fashion jewelry. In addition the Ratner Companies provided a fabulous goodie bag filled with various hair products.

A big thank you to our very own Julie Band, Kristen Bloom of Bobbi Brown, Julie Kantor and Kate Palmer of NFTE and Dennis Ratner. I look forward to doing many more events with those from our community!