These are pictures of our students learning to work with others cooperatively AND learning to share expertise, materials and manpower to a competitor. It is a difficult lesson, but they are getting better at it each time.

Dawn Hall, Principle

I am writing to express my gratitude and appreciation for the generous financial gift you gave to our Middle School for a Leadership Fund. While I am, of course, very grateful for the financial support, I am particularly impressed and moved by the vision behind the gift. Leadership rarely just blossoms on its own. It need to be nurtured. There are many example of courageous inspirational leaders in the world but what is not always so clear is how did they evolve into that admirable example of the best potential we have as human beings to make a difference for the good.

Taylor’s Foundation will help us train and mentor another generation of young people to stand up and have the courage to lead. It might mean they have the courage to confront bias and ignorance when they encounter it. It might mean developing the skills to help peers make better more mature decisions. It might provide the training and seed funding for an idea to become a campaign or a cause and then a movement. We are planning a series of leadership events and this gift will help us to afford speakers, books and maybe a leadership retreat.

Tom Rosenbluth
Head of the Intermediate & Middle Schools
Francis W. Parker School

On behalf of the students, faculty and staff at Northwest Early College High School, I would like to extend my appreciation for the generous donation made through the Taylor Wilson Thompson Family Foundation.

Aside from the strong focus on academics, we also have a sincere interest in developing leadership opportunities within our school and our community. Through the campus Community Service Organization, we will be able to provide students a variety of avenues whereby they can choose to make a difference in their school or community. This donation will enable us to develop the current program to allow more students to participate.

Our plan is to utilize this donation to impact the following areas: community outreach, head start program outreach, school community outreach and the development of a student ambassador program. The student participants will have the opportunity to develop leadership attributes that encompass skills such as: awareness and identification of issues in the community, developing, planning and executing self-selected programs, organizing student groups to meet set goals, and speaking before audiences. We believe that when students bring forth an issue that they care about, they will work passionately on making improvements. We want to support and guide this effort which is where the seeds of a budding leader are found.

Your passion and commitment for student leadership is remarkable and we want to commend you and your family for your efforts!

Once again, thank you for making this donation to our Griffin family!

Sincerely,
Ivette Savina
Principal

Thank you so very much for your gift to Washington Episcopal School. Your generosity will be put to good use as we nurture the minds, hearts, and souls of our students so that they can discover and develop their unique gifts.

Thanks to people like you, and our talented teachers, our graduates can stride confidently into the world as informed, skilled, knowledgeable, compassionate and discerning participants.

Claire Henderson
Director of Development
Washington Episcopal School

Young Writers Academy

I can’t begin to tell you how amazing the Tate-Stone Travel Writers Academy was this past summer! Thanks to your support of this pilot project the girls experienced six days on the campus of Kalamazoo College, while traveling around the community and state meeting women who are living out their dreams.

They had the opportunity to see a WWMT newscast live and pretend to be a meteorologist, they flew in planes and many saw their schools and homes from the sky in addition to meeting a pilot who graduated from KPS and WMU’s School of Aviation! The girls also created a writing center in the garden of Pretty Lake camp as their community service, had an ice-cream social with international students, and so much more.

We are so excited about what transpired this past summer, that we have already created the theme for next year: “Women Entrepreneurs!”

Again, I am so thankful for your support and can’t wait for you to meet the young women!

Sonya Bernard-Hollins, publisher- Community Voices

Founder, Merze Tate Travel Club (Tate-Stone Travel Writers Academy)