Dear Friends,

 

Welcome to the 2021-2022 Annual Report of Gifts to Friends Seminary. This is our opportunity to highlight and thank you for the many ways your generosity helped the School continue its mission in service to our students during our 236th academic year. 

 

Our students, their parents, and our incredible faculty and staff have shown tremendous resilience over the past three years, and I am immensely proud of our community. We were excited to start the year with all students and employees on campus together for the first time since March 2020, and, I am happy and grateful to report, we were able to remain fully open for the entire school year! Being back together with full classrooms and most activities resumed was one more step toward achieving a sense of normalcy we have all been craving. We would not have been able to accomplish this without your support, both financial and otherwise.

 

You showed that support in many ways. First and foremost, your giving to the Fund for Friends was critical, raising $2,865,000 to help offset the cost of a Friends education for our students and their families, and not just those on financial aid. All families benefit when giving allows us to better manage tuition increases. Also importantly, the Senior Gift from the Class of 2022 raised more than $200,000 for the Class of 2022 Financial Aid Endowment with 88% of senior families participating. 

 

These impressive numbers are part of a philanthropic story that was capped off by the 2022 Friends Benefit: Better Together. As a result of that evening, two new funds were introduced and funded. Through the generosity of hundreds of donors, the Benefit raised $415,000 to create the Robin Hoffmann Fund for Equitable Education, and with proceeds totaling $189,000, the Contemporary Art Auction created the Artists for Artists Endowment, which will help support children of artists who wish to attend Friends.

 

As always, none of these notable achievements could have been accomplished without you—the people who make up the heart and spirit of Friends Seminary. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, for whose service I am grateful, and the entire School, it is my pleasure to recognize and express our sincere gratitude for the alumni, parents, grandparents, past and present faculty and staff, parents of alumni and other friends who have honored our community with their philanthropy, their volunteerism, and their partnership this past year.

 

Your dedication and commitment to Friends have ensured that we were able to continue to deliver on our important mission, sustaining and evolving a school rooted in Quaker values where students can “exercise their curiosity and imagination as they develop as scholars, artists and athletes.” I am immensely grateful to each of you and look forward with much anticipation to the bright future we will certainly share.

 

In friendship,