Joining us will be Minnesota House of Representatives Athena Hollins (she/her)
(DFL) District: 66B St. Paul
Athena grew up in rural Hawaii. She learned the value of hard work and service from her father, a veteran and small business owner. Her mother, a social worker, taught her the value of empathy and reaching out a helping hand to those in need. They led her to believe that there isn’t anything that we can’t accomplish together as long as we are willing to listen to each other and put in the necessary effort.
Athena attended Reed College, where she began activism by volunteering with the Queer Alliance, Amnesty International, and the Feminist Student Union. She knew if I wanted to do all she could to be of service, she needed more education.
With a combination of a bit of luck and much effort, she earned a scholarship to the University of St. Thomas for law school to continue to work for a world in which everyone, regardless of their race, religion, economic status, or who they loved could have access to the justice system. She continued her student organizing work on the Lawyer’s Council on Social Justice, the Black Law Students Association, and Out!Law, the LGBTQ+ student association. During law school, she held internships at the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights and the Midwest Coalition
for Human Rights.
After she passed the bar exam, she worked in family law, where she helped people struggling with substance abuse, domestic violence, and immigration issues. She then spent four years at Thomson Reuters in community relations, where she managed community grants and gave employee volunteer activities and diversity and inclusion efforts.
She knew she wanted to be involved in making her neighborhood a great place for her daughter to grow up, so she joined the Payne-Phalen Community Council. Within a year, she was elected as president. She increased the board’s diversity and recruited people not previously involved in neighborhood decision-making. Now they are a majority-minority board working hard to build a safe, livable environment that all neighbors can enjoy.
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