Dear Schutz family,
We’re looking forward to a fun and relaxing Grand Reunion in a few weeks at the Edgefield Resort in Troutdale, just outside of Portland, Oregon – Friday-Sunday, July 12-15. I hope some of you fence-sitters who haven’t reserved yet will decide to join us. Plenty of good seats still available! We’ll have a picnic outing as part of a tour of Portland’s quirky neighborhoods, short-holes golf and a variety of other fun activities at Edgefield. Check out the reunions page on the website to see what’s planned and who’s coming.
One of the issues we’ll be discussing at the meetings on Saturday is the matter of raising funds for things that we want to do as an organization. We have the George and Mary Lou Meloy Scholarship program that is still going strong; we have an exciting new “WikiSchutz” initiative starting this year that is being developed by Charlotte Gelzer-Weaver and Alice Meloy; and we’re planning to schedule our 2024 Grand Reunion to coincide with Schutz School’s 100th anniversary that year…in Alexandria! (Some of you may remember that the membership agreed on this at the 2012 GR in Washington, D.C.) The incoming Head of School is excited about having a delegation of the Schutz “legacy” folks come to join in a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime occasion. He has offered to help make our stay financially possible, if we can get there.
All these things take money. Your board has done some preliminary thinking about ways that we can start raising funds. First, we decided last year to set an annual goal for fundraising – for this year the goal is $5,000. (Wait! – don’t faint! If we all pull together, it really shouldn’t be all that hard to raise this kind of amount.) SASAF is now re-registered as a charitable organization, which means all contributions are tax-deductible. Here is what your board has brainstormed:
- Select one month a year for our annual fund-raising push—Schutz Month. It probably makes sense to do this in summer to time it with our annual reunions.
- Tie the annual fundraising goals to specific needs; for example, $1500 for the Meloy Scholarship.
- Ask donors to make contributions in honor of dear ones who have departed, or in name of some special event or memory from Schutz. The donors would be invited to write about the persons/events and post the pieces on the website.
- Use a “silent auction” and solicit from people things people could bid for – such as a week at a vacation home.
- Try a challenge-grant approach, where some generous person or group puts up a number and have the rest of us match that amount.
I’m sure that there are some other ideas out there, so be thinking about this and how we get a successful fundraising program going. And let’s all be better about paying our dues! It’s easy to set up and to pay annually through our website at https://www.schutzalumni.org/membership-account/membership-levels/.
Finally, I’d like to see some more people come onto the Board. We have a number of seats open and are soliciting nominations. Write to me at [email protected] if you’d be interested in serving a turn, want to nominate someone else, and/or be willing to put your name up at the members’ meeting next month.
I look forward to seeing you in Portland!
Paul Clark (’68)