Endowment Recipients Share Adventures

Seven senior girls each gave a short talk about where they went and what they gained from their travels.

• Claire Tate, recipient of the Samuel D. Jessee Leadership Endowment Award, served as a medical volunteer in Tanzania. She worked in the pre- and post-natal care, labor and HIV wards, observing doctors as they met with patients. She also spent time in a rural Maasai tribe clinic where malnutrition and hygiene were addressed.
• Elizabeth Murphy, recipient of the Mary Parker Moncure Vaden Endowment Award, traveled to India where she worked with children making art from trash and helping them make and write their own books. She quoted one child who wrote, "School is a candle that breaks the dark and allows us to see what is there." She and her fellow volunteers have started a campaign to help one student attend school for 12 years.
• Ellie Fleming, also a recipient of the Jessee Leadership Endowment Award, returned to Nicaragua where she had been previously with a Collegiate group. She volunteered in the first lending library in the country and at a vacation Bible school, spending lots of time with young children in both locations. She said she learned how to follow as well as lead and called the experience "transformative."
• Sydney Adams, recipient of the Julie Williams Layfield Endowment for Service, traveled to Ghana where she volunteered at the Adom Day Care Centre. She spent time there dressing, playing and teaching children who affectionately called her "Auntie." She also volunteered at the Wonderful Love School, painting the school walls and murals. "Spending time with others who are passionate about service" was valuable to her, and, in all, the trip "changed my life," she said.
• Emily Spalding, recipient of the William "Bill" Reeves Renaissance Student Award and lover of theater, called upon a person she met while standing on a New York subway platform when she was only 8 years old to arrange for her summer experience working for Broadway for All. She was a management and marketing associate at this non-profit which provides a free theater intensive conservatory for students. She called it the "summer of a lifetime."
• Caroline Goggins, recipient of the John R. Lower Memorial Endowment Award, described her spring semester of 2015 at the High Mountain Institute in Leadville, CO. She was one of 48 students, academically focused and passionate about the outdoors, who participated in the 17-week program that emphasized environmental ethics. She returned home with insight into being her "best self" and what it's like to be a member of an intentional community.
• Lucy Diggs, also a recipient of the John R. Lower Memorial Endowment Award, spent 30 days in northern Ontario last summer. She said she spent most of her time there paddling but never tired of encountering whitewater, dodging beaver dams and enduring portages. "Once you take away the technology, you realize how beautiful the world is," she said. She came home "stronger, more confident and with a bigger appetite."

All recipients expressed their gratitude for the opportunities to grow and learn more about themselves. Thank you to the generous families who understand the value of leaving one's comfort zone to gain a better understanding of the world.

To learn more about these endowments, which are awarded annually to 11th Graders, please contact Clare Sisisky. You can download the today's program which includes descriptions of the endowments.