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“As the youngest alumni of Amherst, we now have the opportunity and the responsibility to give back to the college,” writes Elizabeth Neckes ’08. “The Senior Class Gift Program serves as a springboard for the class to begin the tradition.”
Neckes chaired her class’s Senior Gift Committee, whose members included (pictured, from left) Chris Gillyard, Kim Partee, Rives Kitchell, Samantha Miller, Brooke Rosenkrantz, Alex McMullin, Kelly King, Neckes and Nick Boehm. “The program began last year,” Neckes says, “when each of us was contemplating our personal, daunting transformation from student to graduate. We asked that our peers take part in arguably the most vital role that alumni of any private institution can occupy.”
The committee, along with the Office of Development, encouraged every senior to donate to the program, in any amount. By graduation, 82 percent of the class had made a gift. With an additional $10,000 donation from an anonymous alum, the senior class gift to the Annual Fund came to $13,496.
“This gift is a symbolic gesture of our class’s unity and of its dedication to the college,” Neckes says. “At a time when many students are thinking about how they are going to pay off loans or how they will fund their new apartments, each student’s gift represents a promise to remember the college that helped form our minds.”
To learn more about how you might support Amherst, contact: Timothy A. Neale ’70, Director of Gift Planning, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002-5000; (413) 542-8256; taneale@amherst.edu; www.amherst.edu/give.