President’s Message – October/November 2023

Now is the Hour to Support Your Alumni Association

To continue providing the breadth of Alumni services we do, EHSA needs your support.

In light of life’s stresses around the world, Ukraine, Middle East and China as well as right here at home in the U.S., one has to wonder about our future role as a democratic country. In fact, it makes me wonder a lot about what my personal future holds. And what I want out of life’s remaining years, including my time with the English High School Association

My alumni involvement goes back to 2002 when I moved back ‘home’ from Westchester County, New York. I was recruited to join the Alumni Board and the rest is history. As President I recruited many new business-oriented Board members. In 2018, we embarked upon a bold strategy to move our undersized office out of the English High School building and into a separate Association office in West Roxbury in anticipation of our school’s 200^th Birthday in 2021. It was a good idea.

With years of steady donation growth in our quiver, we are proud to say we’ve established a strong relationship with many of our 17,000 alumni. We’ve gained your attention by:

• Increasing our alumni email count from 473 to 7,533 today
• Improved our verifiable names and addresses in our database from 3,441 to 11,350
• Enhanced our revenue year after year to a 2022 total of $441,000, most of it going for our 200^th Gala, Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center at the school, and student scholarships
• For the past 3 years, published a monthly Alumni Newsletter (mailed to 7,500+ each month) featuring student and alumni successes stories to ‘rave’ alumni reviews each month.
• Put on a spectacular 200^th Anniversary Gala in 2022 at the Copley Marriott Boston, attracting 350 guests.  At the event EHSA made a Legacy Award to Robert Kraft in honor of his father, Harry Kraft, ’27, and a Lifetime Service Award to Brigadier General Enoch Woody Woodhouse II, ’44.
  
  

  Class of 2023 winners of the Stella and Emmanuel Mavridis Scholarship with George Mavridis (left). Greatly enhanced the Alumni & Friends Tutoring Center at English High with scholarship awards for our essay contest sponsored by George Mavridis, the son of a 1926 alumnus. FYI, Tutoring Center seniors have achieved acceptances to an unheard-of level of 94% in 2022. This enrichment program has made a transformative difference in many seniors’ lives already

• In the past two years, we have created a series of Alumni Breakfast Events with famous guest speakers.
• Establish EHSA on social media including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and our EHSA website englishhighalumni.org

I could go on and on but there is a method in my discourse. We need your help now.

While new scholarships are coming in, we need more operations funding to keep this effort on-going.  Our goal is to raise $100,000 in the next two months – the final months of 2023.

To continue providing the services we do, my hope is all who read this will open their hearts and make a gift to EHSA — your Alumni Association. Each contribution, small or large, helps. Just today, I personally advanced my pledge for 2024 to help our cause for 2023. You too, can make a difference by sending in some level of gift today.

And to all of you who have given this year some more than once, we thank you very, very much!

All of our efforts are geared to helping our students be the successes they want to be. With your donation our combined educational efforts will continue. Remember we are a 501 (C) (3) so your gift is tax deductible. Timing might be right for your required retirement distribution gift.

Thank you for your consideration.