Dear Members of the Pennington Family:

I write to you as a follow-up to the article in the center spread of the most recent Pennington Magazine. After reading that article, you know that the Board of Trustees recently approved a long-range master plan, one that represents an unprecedented fundraising initiative for The Pennington School. I believe the goal is achievable if we all rise to this historic challenge, but doing so requires your support.

Pennington was founded one hundred and seventy years ago by the Methodist Church. The founders believed that the essential qualities of the mind, heart and body were well formed by the time students reached college, making a secondary school education that much more significant. They also considered a commitment to excellence and hard work and the moral obligation to make a difference in the world to be values by which all students should live. Those simple but profound principles are as important today as they were when Pennington was a school of five students and one teacher.

Pennington has never had the financial strength of many of its peer institutions. Because its limited resources have been well managed, however, and because of careful trustee stewardship, Pennington has never been stronger fiscally. The School has an outstanding faculty and a talented student body, and interest in attending Pennington is keen. The Campus Center transformed the campus, but we need to continue to renew and expand the physical plant if the School is to keep pace with the competitive market from which it draws its students. We also have to make certain that Pennington is able to continue to attract committed teachers and diverse students to our community.

The master plan is ambitious, and it will take a number of years to bring it to fruition. Construction on the ground floor of Old Main has begun, however, and during the summer months the science laboratories of Stainton Hall will be completely renovated. An artificial turf field will follow. By graduation 2009, Pennington students will have studied in state-of-the-art science labs and new mathematics classrooms, and they will have competed on a new playing field.

When Phase One is complete, the Board will continue to seek funds to realize the plans to increase academic and extracurricular space and to grow the endowment, which is essential to both the present and the future of the School. In addition to these capital campaigns, support of the Annual Fund remains vital to Pennington’s educational mission.

The ethos of Pennington expects all of us to give back more to the world than we take from it; each year the School graduates students who do just that. I ask that you support Pennington so that it can continue the great tradition of educating tomorrow’s leaders. It is a privilege to lead Pennington at this exciting time in its history, and I hope that all of us will stretch our capacity to give.

Sincerely,
Stephanie G. Townsend
Head of School