Who are all those children speaking Finnish, running around a Seattle yard playing “hippa” (tag) and making Father's Day cards in November? They are students of the Finnish School of Seattle. The Finnish School meets every Thursday and every other Saturday. Some kids visit the Finnish School for a year or two and then return to Finland; others plan to stay involved till their teens.

When the school was founded in 1995, by preschool teacher Airi Suomalainen, it was not the first time that Seattle offered a Finnish school for its immigrant population. With the ever changing flow of Nordic immigration in the late 1800s in this Northwest city, there’s been a Finnish school almost as long there have been Finns. Officially incorporated in 1997, the current school is operated by a small, but determined group of supporters and has established a firm foothold in the community. It now has over 70 students. Working together, through hearts, minds and hard work, the volunteer parents and the teachers have produced an exciting children's education program, as well as reached out to a growing circle of supporters.

Underlying the efforts of parents and teachers is a desire to create an active and motivated Finnish-speaking education community for Finnish children and their families. This dedicated group wants to offer children and their families an opportunity to speak and play in Finnish.

To support this mission, the school’s board of directors concentrates on raising money and developing school communication materials. A little bit of background information on the financial side: a teacher development fund was established with a donation from a local Kaleva Brothers and Sisters lodge. An event called Seattle FinnFest 1999 contributed a major gift to set up the school's library and computing resources. Local Finland-affiliated firms such as Elektrobit and Traveltime have also been generous supporters. Annual fundraising events vary year to year, from bake sales to the annual game of pesäpallo (Finnish baseball).

In an effort to make the school better known to all Finns in the Puget Sound area, the school's board has worked hard on developing and marketing the school's identity to promote effective communication within the broader Finnish community. The Finnish School of Seattle has an established Internet presence with its own website http://www.finnishschoolofseattle.org, and publishes a quarterly newsletter, Suomikoululainen.

The school's leadership enjoys a smooth decision-making process due to continuing strategy meetings that have established a common language, mutual understanding of goals, and core values. Activities with community value are high on the list of goals. For example, the school wants to support Finnish parents by expanding its library. Another objective is to strengthen students' sense of themselves as Finnish Americans, or Americans with "sisu" (determination) spirit! The curriculum enhances the joy of being Finnish and encourages students to live with tolerance and respect for others.