Big Ideas, Real Impact.
The Fund awarded a $15,000 grant to The Lesotho Connection to support the purchase of a safe, reliable school transport vehicle for the St. Camillus Centre in Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho. The Centre provides full-time care for 30 orphaned and vulnerable children and extends scholarships and outreach support to more than 75 others in the surrounding community. In a country facing high poverty rates, significant health challenges, and difficult terrain, dependable transportation is essential to ensuring children can attend school consistently and access medical care and essential services. Our grant helped move the Centre toward acquiring a seven-passenger vehicle to replace its aging car, which had become increasingly unreliable. The vehicle is used daily to transport young children to preschool, ensure the safety of teenage girls traveling to high school, and provide access to medical appointments, social services, and enrichment activities. By investing in safe transport, the Fund strengthened the Centre’s ability to provide stable care, protect student safety, and sustain uninterrupted access to education.
The Fund awarded a $10,000 grant to AMANZI: Water to Schools to support the expansion of its sustainable water and sanitation model at Geelhoutboom, a rural primary school in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. In a region where unreliable infrastructure and climate pressures frequently disrupt access to safe water, the project strengthened the school’s rainwater harvesting capacity and replaced six pit latrines with waterless toilets—providing a safer, more resilient system for its 48 students in grades K–7. This investment helped secure consistent access to clean water and dignified sanitation, reducing the risk of school closures and lost instructional time. By backing a proven, climate-smart approach, the Fund contributed to a scalable solution that supports both student health and long-term educational opportunity in an underserved community.
The Fund’s most significant investment in the Dover–Sherborn school system was the $500,000 renovation of the Dover–Sherborn High School auditorium—now the Mudge Auditorium—transforming it into a modern, fully equipped performance and community space. In addition, since 2000 the Fund has contributed approximately $450,000 in support of the district, including early grants to the Dover-Sherborn Education Fund and sustained enhancements across all schools in the district. These investments have strengthened arts, technology, leadership, and student opportunity. The Fund has underwritten extensive auditorium improvements at Dover-Sherborn High School—including sound shells, choral risers, wireless microphones, lighting upgrades, hearing assistance devices, a stage extension, new curtains, a lighting board, and ongoing equipment support—while also funding music, sound, and classroom enhancements at Chickering School, Pine Hill School, and Dover-Sherborn Middle School. Additional grants have supported physical education initiatives, peer leadership programs, technology upgrades, author visits, outdoor learning spaces, arts programming, and ongoing contributions to the METCO Program scholarship fund. Collectively, these grants reflect the Fund’s long-standing commitment to enriching educational experiences and expanding access to opportunity throughout the Dover–Sherborn community.