The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) has selected Nicole Hernandez as its Director of Recreation Centers and Programs.
Hernandez began her new role on May 22, providing overall management of MPRB’s youth and recreation center programs. This includes developing policies and systems to enhance and improve recreation facilities and services, and to improve how services are integrated and coordinated within the department and across the park system’s 47 recreation centers.
MPRB has already benefitted from Hernandez’s exceptional leadership and experience in building communities and relationships. She joined the organization in June 2022 as Recreation Service Area Manager for North Minneapolis. In that role, she created programs for all ages, connected with community and launched new initiatives. She coordinated a team-building event for MPRB’s Recreation Division, managed the 2023 Citywide Youth Job Fair that drew more than 400 participants and exhibitors, and established Northside programming opportunities through MPRB’s partnership with the Loppet Foundation.
Prior to her work at MPRB, Hernandez was the Children’s Defense Fund-MN’s Youth Development Director for 13 years. She expanded the organization’s Freedom Schools program from three sites to 14, serving almost 3,000 scholars; and secured and managed federal grants totaling $3 million, to establish American Indian- and Hispanic-focused Freedom Schools on local and national levels. Hernandez also worked for seven years in Brooklyn Center Community Education, creating and developing recreation programs for youth in kindergarten through 12th grade and managing its fee based before-and after-school program.
Hernandez served on the Equitable Safe and Learning Advisory Group for Minnesota Department of Education and Ignite Afterschool Policy Committee. The Afterschool Alliance nominated her as a national-level Afterschool Ambassador, and she was selected to serve in the first cohort for the Wilder Foundation’s Community Equity Pipeline.
Hernandez earned a bachelor’s degree in Family Life and Child Development with a minor in Early Childhood Education from Minnesota State University Mankato.