Newton South High School Alumni Give Back

It’s only natural. As retirement approaches, you do a lot of reminiscing about the good times you’ve had. And you think about the legacy you’d like to leave.

So it has been for the Newton South High School Class of 1965. Members started to realize that in only 4 more years it will be time for their 50-year reunion. They remembered classmates who are no longer with them. And they started to think about what they could do now to leave a part of themselves behind.

“We tend to feel we are coming full circle, “says Steven Lerman, Chair of the Newton South High School Class Gift Committee. “As time has passed, we have appreciated the high school education we received and what a special class we had more and more.”

A movement was born. Within a month, roughly 175 classmates were sharing emails, making suggestions, and supporting the idea of giving back. They discovered, to their amazement, that no class in the history of Newton South High School had ever put together a serious gift campaign. They became determined to be the first.

The result is the establishment of the Newton South High School Alumni Gift Fund. The goal is to raise at least $100,000 for two purposes: to upgrade the technology in three classrooms and to endow a scholarship for a graduating senior. The fund is set up so that additional monies can be added if other classes choose to establish their own gift funds.

“Having the Foundation for MetroWest manage our fund is a great advantage for us, “says Steven. “We wanted an organization that understands professional management, has an investment committee, is respected in the community, and has a sense of fiduciary responsibility. The Foundation meets these criteria. It accepts and acknowledges our donations, and will release the funds at our request.”

The creation of the Newton South High School Alumni Gift Fund was celebrated with the symbolic presentation of a check to Principal Joel Stembridge at the 46th reunion this past September. The Class of 1965 hopes to award their first scholarship at graduation in 2012.