Thistletalk Summer 2010 - Winchester Thurston School

development & alumnae/i newsyoung alumNAE/I leadership CouncilCREATES SCHOLARSHIP FUND“Winchester Thurston has shaped me in many ways beyondwhat I expected it to. It took so much work to bring myself to theWT level of excellence…Thank goodness the teachers were sopatient and concerned with my progress, because they helpedme grow tremendously! From freshman year to senior year,my capabilities were vastly improved! I’ve been told by myprofessors that I’m a profoundly mature writer of philosophy,that I’m an inquisitive science student, and an overall wellprepared scholar." — Tianda King ’09Thanks to the commitment of the Young Alumnae/iLeadership Council and to the generosity of nearly 60young alums, $10,000 was added to Winchester Thurston’s2010-2011 financial aid resources, specifically to fund oneUpper School student’s tuition.This was just one of a number of initiatives undertakenby the Council, a group of WT alums spanning the classesof 1989-2009. Last year, the Council considered how theycould give back to the Winchester Thurston communitywhile increasing interest and participation from the WTalumnae/i network. They formed four committees to work onmarketing and admissions, communications, philanthropy, andnetworking. Each committee set goals and developed actionplans.The philanthropy committee was aware that giving fromyoung alums was in need of substantial improvement. Itwas decided that the creation of a specific scholarship fundwould increase young alum participation and would connecttheir contributions to a more tangible cause. The Council'sfirst philanthropy goal was to raise $10,000 from WT youngalums to support tuition assistance for an Upper Schoolstudent. “The words of young alum Tianda King, who wroteto us to express her gratitude for the financial support shereceived as a student, bring to life the importance of financialaid and the generosity of our young alums. They came forwardwith this initiative because they wanted to help others have thesame excellent Upper School education and college preparatoryexperience they did,” says Jennifer Scanlon, Director ofInstitutional Advancement.In addition to leading the effort to raise this gift, over thepast 12 months the Council has held several social events,worked to help establish “mywt,” the Alumnae/i Portal of theWT web site, and worked to increase networking opportunitiesfor students and other young alums.Donors to the 2009 - 2010 Young Alum ScholarshipDina Kaplan A ’89Jennifer Gonzalez McComb ’89Lissa Guttman ’90Alunda Grzybek Edmonds ’91April Lee ’91Dorothy McLaughlin ’91Kathleen Metinko ’91Kelly Hanna Riley ’91Jennifer Staley ’91Ann Stanton Adams ’93Jennifer Deklewa Gabler ’94Kate Masley ’94Erin Herward Thurston ’94Lauren Ames ’95Katie Brennan ’95Cathryn Hunt Graybill ’95Christie Schroth ’95Sarah Gross Fife ’96Anjali Sachdeva ’96Laurel Shaw ’96Daniel Michelmore ’97Lisa Davis ’97Satvik Rangaraj ’97Adam Witt ’97Azadeh Masalehdan Block ’98Laura Cantor ’98Sarah Farkas ’98Sara Ginsburg ’98Sara Ruth Kerr ’98Lee Erica Moses A ’98Antoinette Oliver ’98Brandilyn Dumas ’99Christopher Potter ’99Nathaniel Doyno ’01Gautam Ganguli ’01Ashley Lemmon ’01Kristen Maser Michaels ’01Byron Raco ’01Kerry Soso ’01Laura Stack ’01David Farkas ’02Rachel Gross ’02Danielle Chalfant ’03Callie Gropp ’03Katlyn McGraw ’03John Prendergast ’03Abigail Robinson ’03Nickia Booker ’04James Eversmeyer ’04Lara Miller ’04Ian Sullivan ’04Steven Tracy ’05Sunil Narla ’06Jessica Schwartz ’06Andrew Wickerham ’06Michael D’Emilio ’07Lindsay Machen ’07Sonya Narla ’07Logan Uretsky ’07Elspeth Powell ’08Mireille Ngokion ’09Katharine Vidt ’09Class of 2010* List is current as ofJune 18, 2010.w w w . w i n c h e s t e r t h u r s t o n . o r g21