No two-bit operation

Kirsten Lewis ’03 and Molly Porter ’03 raised more than just quarters during this year’s senior-class gift effort.

The senior-class gift program made a little history this year.
     As freshmen, the class of ’03 had unanimously embraced a newly devised and deceptively simple “quarters” drive: class volunteers convinced everyone to donate twenty-five cents to Skidmore’s annual fund. The “gift level” was fifty cents in their sophomore year, then seventy-five cents last year. And this year as seniors they mustered seventy well-practiced volunteers to ask their classmates for a dollar or more. (In fact, thirty-seven seniors gave at least $50, putting them in the Friends of the Presidents giving society).
     Regardless of gift sizes, if the seniors reached their participation goal of 81 percent (one point better than last year’s senior-class effort), trustees Susan Gottlieb Beckerman ’67 and Leland Peyser ’81 agreed to add the cash needed to bring their total to $10,000—enough to fund the Senior Class Scholarship for a rising senior next fall. At Commencement, co-chairs Kirsten Lewis ’03 and Molly Porter ’03 were thrilled to report a goal-busting 84 percent participation rate.
     Ever since its perfect start with the freshmen of ’03 back in 1999, the quarters program has been going strong in subsequent classes, reports Adele Einhorn ’80, director of the annual fund. “It builds a class spirit of philanthropy, and the volunteers enjoy doing it,” she says, adding, “The guys love it—they say it’s a good way to meet girls.” —SR