Grace Episcopal Day School’s 50th Anniversary Celebration Year

What a wonderful celebration it was! 

• Our 50^th Anniversary year kicked off with Grace’s participation in the 2009 Kensington Labor Day Parade, where more than 50 members of our community marched, sang and celebrated Grace!

• Chairman of the Board of Governors Hedrick Belin announced the Guerin-Calvert Challenge, a $50,000 match for new and increased gifts to the Annual Fund made by former Board Chair and parent Meg Guerin-Calvert and her husband Preston in honor of meg’s mother, Anneilese Guerin. 

• Beautiful banners went up on both the Grace campuses, touting Grace’s tradition of compassion, inspiration and learning, and promoting our 50^th

• Students, faculty and staff were greeted upon their return to school with wonderful GRACE t-shirts, a gift in honor of our birthday

• Our 2008-2009 Annual Report of Gifts laid out the whole Anniversary schedule of events, while celebrating more than $500,00 raised in the past year for programs and people at Grace

• In October, at our Shield Society dinner honoring our $1,000+ donors to the Annual Fund, the Grace 50^th Anniversary Anthem, written by music teacher John Kennedy, made its debut.

• Family Fun Day was rainy and windy, but still proved to be a very special day for our current families as well as the many alumni and alumni families who attended.  The PTO did a terrific job!

• Founders Day, October 28^th, was attended by more than a hundred of our alumni, families, former faculty and staff and friends in the Grace Church community.  Proclamations were read from many local and state leaders, proclaiming October 28^th Grace Episcopal Day School Day!

• In November the Grace community marched together in the 2009 Silver Spring Thanksgiving Day Parade along with the 9 foot birthday cake designed and built by Grace grandfather Roland Leimbach.

• On January 1^st, Grace welcomed Helen R. Marter as our Interim Head of School after Carol Franek’s resignation in the fall.

• Our first alumni event, A Walk Down Memory Lane, was snowed out by the blizzards of Febraury, 2010, but was rescheduled for March and attended by over 40 of our alumni, faculty, staff and friends.  Hosted by Jonathan Kling, ’82 and Helen Marter, the event was a great opportunity for our community to come together and share memories, fellowship and a lot of laughs!

• Our Anniversary celebration culminated in the publication of our Grace story, Growing Grace, a spectacular book available in both hard and soft cover designed and written by our Grace History Project – a hard working group of volunteers who worked throughout our Anniversary year to create this tribute to Grace. (CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY)

And…

• Our 50^th Anniversary Gala and PTO Auction on April 17^th, which grossed over $85,000 in support of our programs and was attended by 250 guests.

• In May, Hedrick Belin announced the successful completion of the $50,000 Guerin-Calvert challenge and Meg Guerin-Calvert, Preston Calvert and Anneliese Guerin attended a presentation ceremony on June 3^rd.

• On June 8^th, 2010, Grace Episcopal Day School graduated our first class of 8^th graders in more than 30 years.  This impressive group of young men and women will be attending leading independent and magnet school programs throughout the area.

As our 50^th Anniversary draws to a close, we are so grateful to all the wonderful volunteers whose leadership made a huge difference in the success of this memorable year.  We feel blessed by all the members of the Grace family who returned to Grace for our events, and look forward to another 50 years of compassion, inspiration and learning at Grace Episcopal Day School!

For the list of activities for our community for the 2010-2011 school year, visit our alumni and parent pages!