'83 earns $15K as Most Improved! Way to go!

Results of the April Donor Challenge at DA are in and congratulations are in order.  Thank you so much for responding to the outreach of your class agents: Blain, Clark, Feiges, Fitzpatrick, Flagg, Knight, Singewald, Sullivan, Townsend, Weymouth and Wolf, who were led by the enthusiastic Doug Schmidt...

What a rally - with a week to go we had 20 april donors and the class of '74 had 27.  In the last week we added 17 donors and they only added 3!

The team will bask in the glory for a week or two, then its back to the phones to rally the rest of the class to make a gift by June 30 to help DA garner >50% alumni participation for the first time in 6 years...

The official announcement:

Class of 1983 Surprises, Class of 1979 Repeats!!

Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 April Donor Challenge!

Most Donors in April

Class of 1979 with 113 donors, 1st place $15,000

Class of 1964 with 84 donors, 2nd place $8,000

Class of 1983 44 donors*  

Class of 1974 38 donors*  

Class of 1966 with 32 donors, 3rd place $1,797

Most Improved April 2011 Donors Compared to April 2010

Class of 1983 +37 donors, 1st place $15,000

Class of 1974 +30 donors, 2nd place $8,000

Class of 1966 +20 donors*

Class of 1964 +16 donors*

Class of 1977 +10 donors, 3rd place tie $898.50

Class of 2009 +10 donors, 3rd place tie $898.50

 *Challenge rules stipulate a class may only win in one category.

To view complete results, go to deerfield.edu/go/aprildonorchallenge

The April Donor Challenge brought in 894 gifts and $585,595 in revenue, greatly helping us toward our year-end goals of 50% participation and $5,000,000 in revenue.

Thanks to everyone who made a gift in April!

When you're right, you're right...

As a follow up to a story reported in October 2010, when Eric Peterson wouldn't allow his St. George's School football team to play against a MUCH bigger Lawrence Academy team for safety reasons, it turns out Eric was on to something.

Boston news outlets are reporting a series of sanctions imposed on LA by their league (ISL) for improper financial aid packages to athletes (my summary) and the school has had to vacate their two previous league titles and faces other restrictions for three years.

Eric is not the gloating kind, but kudos to him for doing what's right at the time, and being vindicated later. (Frank DeFord's NPR commentary did support Eric at the time, but many others considered him a quitter).

It's hard to have ideals these days, but we're glad Eric has them and defends them...