November 8, 2023
24 Cheshvan 5784
Dear LGA Community,
A few weeks ago, at our Back to School Night, I announced a major new LGA initiative: the launch of the Scholarship Fund. That evening seems like eons ago now. The world outside does not look like the same world. Our inner worlds do not feel the same. And yet, more than ever before, LGA students – their future, their learning – are a source of immense light and inspiration. To see them learning and playing, singing together, and being there for each other, is the clearest reminder how much hope and beauty there is in the world.
The Scholarship Fund is a crucial development in the life of Lander-Grinspoon Academy. It is also deeply and personally relevant to me, and so I would like to share with you all the message I delivered to our families at the Back to School Night. I am hoping that as the members of our wider community you will find this message timely and affecting. Along with the text below, I am also sending along the video recorded for everyone’s accessibility and convenience.
I am always bewildered and delighted by our kids’ capacity to notice things – nature, facial expressions, interpersonal dynamics, stirrings of the inner world – all of it. They notice what we wear and what we say (and they are so skilled at noticing things we don’t say outloud but mutter under our breath!). Our kids are watching us at our most human as they, too, are learning to walk through the world.
As we model for them our ways, one the greatest gifts we can offer them is the sense that learning and discovering is a pleasure. And, a belief that meaningful conversations are nourishing, a belief that reading books and talking about books is exciting, and good for our minds and souls. We can model for them a sense that learning doesn’t end at the end of the school day, or school year, or at the graduation.
One of the crucial ideas we learn and model when we come together as a diverse community is best captured in the words of poet Adrienne Rich: “No one lives in this room… without the dream of common language”. Whenever I find myself in the spaces I consider to be deeply affecting, in the spaces I consider, in some way, sacred – and school, to me, is as sacred as it gets – I repeat Adrienne Rich’s words to myself, like a mantra or a prayer – or a question. We and our kids come together not just to learn, but also to learn to dream – to dream and work towards a common language.
The common language is created by means of access.
I am so proud to know that a significant portion of our families – more than half – receive some degree of financial aid. I am so proud to know that I am the Head of School in an economically diverse community. Our financial aid needs have gone up by over 40% this year, as compared to last year – we gave away nearly half-million dollars in aid in total – and my heart goes out to everyone among us who is negatively affected by the economic downturn we are all witnessing. And so, today, I am truly grateful to Sara Farber, our Board Chair, for her idea of launching the scholarship fund that would help us support and include all the families that are part of our community – while also stepping in to urgently ensure the school’s financial viability.
I want to tell you why this really hits home for me. If you have read my previous emails and my bio, you know that I grew up in Ukraine, and perhaps you also know that I came to the States on my own, at fifteen, on a fellowship, which of course, included with it a scholarship. And it was the beginning of a long path through the educational system, which, at every step, included scholarship applications.
Because I came as a student, and not a citizen, I did not qualify for public education. At the same time, my family could not support me because they lived, and continue to live, in Ukraine. There’re many middle-class people in countries like Ukraine who make, and live on, $200-300/month. When I was leaving home, at fifteen, my folks gave me a little envelope. It was a very peculiar Soviet kitsch kind of envelope, with little penguins in bow ties on it, and it had cash inside. The envelope said: “To you – from all of us”. And “us” meant my four grandparents, my parents, and my aunt. There were seven one hundred dollar bills — to live a life in America, get education, and become a person.
Even though all this feels like ancient history, and many years have passed, experiences like these do not easily dissipate. For a long time, intellectually, I knew the limitations of family’s support, but emotionally at times, it felt hard and unfair. I was very grateful to my community – the Jewish community, specifically – for supporting my learning, but as some of you know, it is not always easy to find yourself on the receiving end. Being able to afford school is so personal – and, I learned, it is all the more personal, when it is your own children’s learning that you are that you are trying to afford.
Some months ago, as we were packing up to move here to Western Massachusetts from the West Coast, I was sifting through the boxes, and in one of the older folders, for the first time in many years, I saw the old envelope – the one with the penguins. And what washed over me right then was, really, nothing but the gratitude: for the start that my folks had given me – they did the best they could, and I would not be here without it.
And this is why, today, I feel profoundly moved and proud to announce that we’re launching the Lander-Grinspoon Academy Scholarship Fund. Our goal is to raise $150,000 dollars towards the coming year’s aid – which is what we need to include all the families that are part of our community, while also maintaining the school’s financial viability.
In honor of my grandparents (may their memory be a blessing), and in gratitude to my parents, I am honored to take the opportunity for our family – Shoshana and me – to be the first to contribute to it.
It only feels right to be donating $700.
I know that Sara Farber, our board chair, is matching my contribution, and that every member of our board already pledged to generously donate to the fund as well. The fund is hosted by the Jewish Federation of the Western Massachusetts, and I hope that you will both contribute – whatever you can – and help us spread the word, because anybody can contribute to this fund. May it grow and prosper, and help us build and maintain an equitable community of learners, for years and years to come.
In the body of the email you are receiving, and in the youtube description of this video, you will find a link to a page where you can make a contribution.
Thank you all!
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