All across the country this week, our donors and supporters are receiving SYF’s annual #ThanksForGiving greeting card. Several years ago SYF staff started this tradition to make the most of the Thanksgiving holiday and our signature color of orange. Any organization can send an end of the year holiday greeting or plea for Giving Tuesday; but how many other organizations can do so in their own signature orange? Each year we select an image that encapsulates the spirit of our work at SYF, paired with a message of gratitude for everyone who has supported us. Over the years we have featured students, teachers, or other impactful visuals that demonstrate the role all our donors and supporters play in supporting the work we do to help students reach graduation day.
This year’s greeting features a social distanced graduation of a student in Burlington, MA, and the staff who showed up to (safely!) surprise the graduate at home, masks and all. Because nothing says the year 2020 like at-home graduations complete with grad caps and face-masks, right? The shock and surprise on the student’s face, the jubilant celebration by the teaching staff (lead by our Administrator of the Year, Jill Graham, pictured on the right) capture the special nature of this moment. In a most public display of the student’s accomplishments, this photo was taken on the road just outside the student’s home. A testament to SYF’s commitment to our students and the celebration of their success.
To me that picture is the essence of our work. Teachers who care, students who want to be there, and the countless people that support them along the way.
Thank you for making sure that SYF means graduation, no matter what, and now more than ever.
If you’ve been following along this year, you’ll likely recognize that phrase. I’ve recently accepted an inordinate amount of chiding about my overuse of hashtags in social media. So much that the millennials on staff have reached a point of politely noding and rolling their eyes at my lack of understanding of its use. I know that they are secretly muttering “okay, Zoomer” behind their masks, and that’s okay.
I couldn’t let the week go by without adding a new one — #thankful.
I am thankful to all of our donors, who despite their own challenges this year still stepped up and helped us continue to make sure that #SYFmeansGraduation.
I am thankful to our teachers and district partners who made sure that our students, #NoMatterWhat, did not become a statistic in 2020 – our spring graduation rate was 98%, despite a pandemic.
I am thankful to our students who knew that #NowMoreThanEver the value of the high school diploma and the key that it opens to their future.
I am thankful for our dedicated staff who have faced their own personal challenges and persevered to make sure every student and teacher mattered.
I am thankful for our Board that has supported, checked on, encouraged, and trusted our staff with the work we do, without wavering from the dedication to making sure students reach graduation day.
No doubt your Thanksgiving holiday is looking very different this year; but instead of focusing on what it is not, I challenge you to think about what it is…
Your support of SYF is what I am #thankful for this year.
I told a colleague the other day that all of my grandparents would have been in their early twenties during the pandemic of 1918-19; but never do I recall them ever speaking of the experiences they had in that time period. After the last nearly 9months and the look ahead, I understand why.
What I will remember is all of you who were there for SYF – our students, our teachers, our staff and our communities.
Thank you!
Michael
