General TCPPA Charities Fund

The Twin Cities Professional Photographers Association fundraises throughout the year toward “TCPPA Charities” - our charitable giving efforts. This fund is divided between three beneficiaries:

1. PPA Charities/Operation Smile (Professional Photographers of America National Charity) - This organization allows imaging professionals to combine their individual efforts to make an impact on the lives of children and families everywhere. A perfect fit for photographers, whose daily business is creating smiles for their clients, Operation Smile’s mission is repairing childhood facial deformities including cleft lips and cleft palates. It costs only $240 to complete a simple cleft-palate operation because Operation Smile’s medical team volunteers their services.
2. NILMDTS (Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep) – The Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation administers a network of volunteer professional photographers who provide a helping hand and a healing heart to families who suffer the loss of a baby at birth or soon after. Volunteer photographers provide gentle, compassionate photographic services that allow families to honor and cherish their babies and to share the spirit of their lives. For more information, log on to www.nilmdts.org.
3. Members Helping Members – TCPPA fund to help members in the event of an emergency. Illness and other emergency situations happen when we are least expecting it. This fund, established in 2017, may be used to help a member with their emergency situation or to help with expenses as a result.

The Rod Radtke Memorial Fund

100% of the donations in this fund will be given to the family of long-time member and former TCPPA president Rod Radtke for use in the final expenses for Rod Radtke Photography, or any other expense the family sees fit. Rod Radtke passed away suddenly May 14, 2018, from the effects of a hemorrhagic stroke.

Rod had been a member of TCPPA since 2002 and served for many years on the Board of Directors. He was the association president in 2015. He had been a part of the photography community for much longer, however. In 1982 he started working for Photo Corp of America (PCA) in Minneapolis as a photographer and later as a certified district trainer, studio manager/photographer at Focal Point One Hour Photo in Roseville, CPI(Sears) Portrait studio in Brookdale Mall, and Great Photos Fast in Golden Valley. In 2010 he opened his own studio, Rod Radtke Photography, in Fridley. He was selected to be one of the Starkey Foundation Gala photographers, where he took photographs of presidents, musicians, sports figures and astronauts.