Dear Fellow Alumni,
In the face of continuing economic challenges, your generosity to the Kenyon Fund has enabled the College to operate in the black once again - and to deliver the goods to the latest generation of Kenyon students. Combined with the annual gifts received by the College from Kenyon parents and friends, the Kenyon Fund has provided the functional equivalent of income from an added $100,000,000.00 in endowment. That makes a huge difference.
Alumni contributions for 2011-2012, received between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012, totaled in excess of $3,275,000.00, and provided support for academic needs; athletics and fitness; financial aid in general; the Hannah More Scholarship for first-generation students in particular; campus preservation and beautification; Green Kenyon; and other areas of need.
In the years ahead, we hope to further grow and build the Kenyon Fund. We will celebrate Kenyon's bicentennial in 2024. By then, it should be a Kenyon Fund tradition to regularly exceed 50% participation by alumni contributors. But the key to supporting our alma mater is not just giving. Many of our alumni demonstrate that through their involvement and inspired work in admissions; career services and placement; class, era, and interest reunion planning; regional alumni programs and events; volunteer roles with the Board of Trustees, Alumni Council, the Kenyon Fund Executive Committee, and as Class Agents; and in untold other ways -- in addition to their direct financial support provided through the Kenyon Fund. We are looking to strengthen alumni participation on all of these fronts.
For Kenyon alumni, it's not just a slogan that "We make it Kenyon." Without active alumni attention, involvement, and support, the College would hardly survive, much less prosper. So let me take this opportunity to thank you - not just for your past, present, and future giving to the Kenyon Fund, but for everything you are doing, and will do in the years ahead, to support and represent Kenyon College.
Sincerely,
R. Benton Gray '73
Kenyon Fund and Kenyon Fund Executive Committee Chair, 2011-2012