Honoring Our Alumni
Just weeks away from the end of my 15th year working at the Center School, I’m getting emotional. Again. It’s something about the combination each May brings– of lilacs everywhere, a certain kind of pride I see in students’ and teachers’ faces as they embody all they learned and taught each other this year, and the news we inevitably get from alumni and their families about how they’re faring out in the world. Just yesterday, I must have seen at least five Center School alumni, now graduating from college, photographed in cap and gown beside beaming, happy parents, as I scrolled through Facebook. One or two of these young people had pretty challenging times in their teenage years, riding out the first ones with us here in our nurturing middle school program. I imagine they took what they learned at the Center School and carried it with them, like a rabbit’s foot or a security blanket, or even a superhero cape.
Photo via University of Massachusetts Amherst
Sometimes, the good news and glorious stories float in from people who graduated before I started working here. Still, I feel connected because they’ve stayed in touch all these years later. One such person is Daren Two Feathers, an alum who just won the distinguished UMASS Chancellor’s Citation Award, which “recognizes employees who have demonstrated outstanding performance in helping the university achieve its goals and objectives through original contributions to the university, attainment of high-priority university objectives, performance ‘beyond the call of duty’ and/or achievement of significant improvements in productivity or savings in university operations.” Daren models so many of our mission’s tenets: love, compassion, hard work. I hope you can take a couple of minutes to watch the video about him here. Talk about emotional, this guy definitely brings a lump to the throat.
Center School alumni are out in the world doing good work. Like the stirring fragrance of so many lilacs in the air, our mission is contagious and inspires hope. If you agree, please join donors like Daren Two Feathers, and give a gift to the Annual Fund. When everyone gives (no matter the amount), the School sends that message to our bank, as well as to our angel and corporate donors, who see our engaged community as a sign that the Center School’s mission is alive and well, and worth investing in. This is how a rad little independent school like ours can sustain itself each year, giving more and more students the opportunity to perpetuate love, compassion, and hard work. So please give, because it really does make this place possible.
Thank you so much,
Charlie Spencer
Head of School, former Center School teacher, and alumni parent of Jude and Henry