Ready to tap into your inner artist and add a little handcrafted magic to your holiday season? Join us for a festive Adult Craft Night, where we’ll be creating our own DIY Christmas trees…equal parts cozy, creative, and joyfully low-pressure. No crafting experience necessary… just bring your holiday spirit, a willingness to try something new, and maybe a friend who could use a night out. Let’s sip, laugh, make beautiful things, and kick off the season with community and cheer.

Elizabeth Kearney Women’s Leadership Program is a gender-specific, leadership program. The program takes a cohort of approximately 25 women through 9 months of professional and personal leadership development, beginning in the fall and ending in late spring.

Let imagination run wild at our two-day Artful Adventures mini camp! Designed for girls and gender-expansive youth in grades 3-8, this camp introduces participants to the inspiring world of art while building confidence, creativity, and connection.

Continues on your creative journey as your imagination grows on day 2 of our two-day Artful Adventures minicamp! Designed for girls and gender-expansive youth in grades 3-8, this camp introduces participants to the inspiring world of art while building confidence, creativity, and connection.

Lace up and get ready to enjoy the world around us, connect with nature, and build community in fresh ways. This will be an outdoor hike on an easy trail, meet at the trailhead at the back of the park.

In January, YWCA Mankato invites you to our Adult Banned Book Club for a deep and powerful discussion of All American Boys by Jason Reynolds

All American Boys, published in 2016, is a young adult novel written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The book tells the story of two teenage boys, Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins, as they handle racism and police brutality in their community. The novel has gained attention in recent years, becoming the 26th most banned book of 2022, due to its inclusion of anti-police messages, alcohol, drug usage, and profanity.

Elizabeth Kearney Women’s Leadership Program is a gender-specific, leadership program. The program takes a cohort of approximately 25 women through 9 months of professional and personal leadership development, beginning in the fall and ending in late spring.

We’re kicking off the new year with a day trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, designed especially for girls and gender-expansive youth ready to explore, imagine, and be inspired. From world-class galleries to hands-on creative activities, this getaway blends art, discovery, and community in one vibrant winter adventure.

This is a FREE movement of women coming together to: Inspire and uplift one another; Share ideas, wisdom, and support; Find belonging, connection and strength in community.

In February, YWCA Mankato invites you to our Adult Banned Book Club for a deep and powerful discussion of The Color Purple. This 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.

The novel has been the target of censors numerous times, and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2010 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels."

Elizabeth Kearney Women’s Leadership Program is a gender-specific, leadership program. The program takes a cohort of approximately 25 women through 9 months of professional and personal leadership development, beginning in the fall and ending in late spring.

In March, YWCA Mankato invites you to our Adult Banned Book Club for a deep and powerful discussion of the Kite Runner.

The Kite Runner is the debut novel of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young Afghan boy from Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, beginning with the collapse of Afghanistan's monarchy and the Afghan conflict that sparked shortly thereafter, with a particular focus on the Soviet–Afghan War and the mass exodus of Afghan refugees, as well as the rise of the Taliban regime.

Elizabeth Kearney Women’s Leadership Program is a gender-specific, leadership program. The program takes a cohort of approximately 25 women through 9 months of professional and personal leadership development, beginning in the fall and ending in late spring.

In April, YWCA Mankato invites you to our Adult Banned Book Club for a deep and powerful discussion of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior," a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.

Although critically acclaimed, The Absolutely True Diary has also been the subject of controversy and has consistently appeared on the annual list of frequently challenged books since 2008, becoming the most frequently challenged book from 2010 to 2019.Controversy stems from how the novel describes alcohol, poverty, bullying, violence, sexuality and bulimia. As a result, a small collective of schools have challenged it, and some schools have blocked the book from distribution in school libraries or inclusion in the curricula.

For over 50 years, the YWCA Mankato has been honoring individuals and organizations in the Greater Mankato area for their outstanding contributions to our community at the annual Women of Distinction event.

This event serves as a platform to recognize those who embody the mission of the YWCA Mankato: eliminating racism and empowering women.

The Mother’s Day 5K was created to honor the strength, spirit, and love that mothers bring to our lives, and to celebrate the power of movement and community that unites us all. As we look ahead to 2026, we’re bringing this cherished tradition back with renewed purpose and energy.