President’s Message – April, 2023
Breakfast and Then Some, Anyone?
What do you get when you cross a former Director of Admissions at prestigious Brandeis University with a two-term NTSB Member at the same Alumni Breakfast? You get one heck of a story line about the worst ‘bird strike’ air disaster in the U.S. history. And a great Breakfast Event!
It was the best attended (65 registrants) Alumni ‘Breakfast’ event we’ve ever run! Held last week at the Newton Marriott hotel; it was only the second ‘in-person’ event in over four years. It took place in the same Charles River Room four years ago in 2019. If you could not attend, our dashboard recap might help:
Michael Kalafatas’61, an accomplished author, of 3 books and a documentary film producer
John Goglia’62, a 2-term (8 years) National Transportation Safety Board, Clinton appointee, Air Safety award winner in 2007; subsequently had another National Safety Award renamed after him, the John Goglia Time Out for Safety Award, co-author of a 157 Flight Safety podcasts
Football highlights of ’21 and ’22 victories over Latin
Red Sox Tickets Raffle
Barry Hickman’63 remembrance thoughts on Preston Johnson ‘63
If you could not make it, no worries, we have two more Alumni Breakfasts planned, one on May 25th at The Hotel 1620 in downtown Plymouth and on Juneteenth (19th) at Devine Golf Club in Franklin Park.
Update: Tickets now on sale for the May 25th Breakfast. Click here to get yours
The Plymouth Breakfast will feature famous speaker Steve Kurkjian, former Globe Spotlight Team Award winner and Netflix show, This is a Robbery, contributor. It will be interesting to hear what Steve thinks after all these years, $500M in artwork is still not recovered! He has his theories in his book Master Thieves.
This seems to be the year of the Alumni-funded scholarship.
We have two generous alums who committed to a $50,000 scholarship which will be online soon. Any size scholarship can be gifted to help English High seniors negotiate the complex waters of college applications and financial aid acceptance packages.
Here are two examples of what the impact of a scholarship can make:
Abou Konate ’12 is a prime scholarship recipient example: an immigrant from Guinea, assimilated at English High, was welcomed by all and receive a scholarship to go to UNH. In our April Appeal letter in the mail today, he’s asking for your help with scholarships and support. If he had not received similar support from English Alumni through EHSA, he could not have attended UNH and become the engineer he is today!
Read more about Abou in this Alumni Profile article
Jessica Lopes ’22 received the Nollman Family Scholarship, established by Mike Nollman ’52, which enabled her to attend Wellesley College.
Read more about Jessica and how she’s doing at Wellesley College in this update article.
Have you heard about our new Monthly Sustainable Donor Plan?
You don’t have to have a lot to help a lot! Today, again we are emphasizing our Monthly Sustainable Donor Plan for all alumni. The concept is simple and it’s easy to make a gift on a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly basis, small or large. We accommodate gifts of any amount, whatever is comfortable for you. Making a smaller donation amount multiple times might work for you. We hope this appeals to our younger alumni.
Learn more about our Monthly Sustaining Donor Plan and sign up here.
The English High Sports Front
The EHS Baseballers are off to a 6-0 start this year featuring timely hitting and pitching while defeating foes in the Boston City league and beyond…watch out for this team!!
Alumni Giving
After a slow start, we hope alumni everywhere and of any means will consider a ‘stretch gift’ this year to help us achieve our $1MM goal in 2023. Your gift could target a scholarship to a deserving student or an ‘essay writing’ session in the Tutoring Center for a senior. Where do our gifts go? Our Mission remains is the same as it was in 1821:
‘To provide a legacy that supports and inspires students in their educational pursuits and celebrates distinguished alumni achievement’
Big News!
Last year you helped us raise a half-million dollars !
In 2022 we raised $500,000 toward our $3MM goal over three years. Not bad considering, we only focused on major fundraising starting in July. Our goal for 2023 is to raise $1MM in support of school enrichment programs.
Today’s students need our help. They have the same needs we had when we attended English.
Consider Making A Gift Today
Onward!
Mike Thomas, ’67
President & CEO
The English High School Association
mthomas@englishhighalumni.org
