The Veritas Development team was thrilled to welcome so many of our Leadership Circle members to a gratitude reception on Tuesday night, April 12th. After several years of not being able to hold an in-person reception to thank the philanthropic leaders of our school, this year's event was a sweet time of fellowship, encouragement, and inspiration.
Members of the Veritas Academy Orchestra and Advanced Chamber Ensemble graced the audience with music, and a compelling presentation was made by former Veritas parent Mark McCollom (father of Grace McCollom, class of 2021) about the founding of the Veritas Instructional Excellence Award.
Our keynote speaker, renowned economist and asset manager David Bahnsen, founder of The Bahnsen Group, challenged the audience to maintain and encourage a deeply Biblical view of the nature of humanity with respect to our work: recognizing that we are created by God in His image, with dignity, purpose, and a mandate toward joyful and creative productivity.
If you would like to learn more about becoming part of the Veritas Academy Leadership Circle, please contact Sarah Yacoviello at 717-817-6586 or at syacoviello@veritasacademy.com.
The following are remarks from Ty Fischer, Head of School, and Sarah Yacoviello, Development Director to close our Leadership Circle reception. For those who weren't present to receive these words in person, we invite you to read their heartfelt thanks below.
Whenever anyone asks me how long I’ve been at Veritas, for some reason, I have a hard time remembering the exact date. What I do remember, however, (before I was even working for the school, I might add) was that afternoon in late December, at the prompting of Ty, whom I had just met a few weeks earlier at a seminar, attempting to explain a “far too good to be true” tax credit program to Mark Moses (who did give me permission to tell this story by the way). I was in the back hallway of Infinito's during a swim team party, and strangely enough, he also remembers having that same conversation - but he was in the Lancaster AAA parking lot. We were on the phone, of course and could barely hear each other amidst all of the background noise, but somehow, he decided to give it a try. And when three or four other families subsequently joined the tax-credit bandwagon shortly after that memorable conversation, I quite naively regarded my persuasive powers as the reason. It was only years later that I realized the program (which we now recognize as a tremendous blessing to our school) was indeed initially met with skepticism and some fairly hefty behind-the-scenes research, and that I actually had very little to do with clinching those early deals. Regardless, Ty decided to give me a chance in early 2017, and these five years since have been nothing short of precious to me.
Over the years, I have enjoyed a front row seat to some pretty significant giving moments at Veritas Academy. Most of you will easily recall Lancaster County’s Extraordinary Give and the way you, our amazing donor community, came together to raise over $100,000 in 2020 and then went on to double that amount in 2021. That was a truly special moment in Veritas time. And then, when the timeline of the sale of our building was moved up considerably during a period of economic uncertainty, you met with us, you advised us, and you gave so generously that we were able to confidently and aggressively win the bid and finally call our school building our own! When we needed updated science lab equipment, STEM and robotics classroom materials, Fine Arts upgrades, admissions and marketing enhancements, and funding for scholarships and our refugee students, you came together to support these programs which so beautifully enrich the classical tradition we all hold so dear. I am so thankful, my friends, for these deeply generous and significant moments in which you played the main role.
But as I think about the tremendous generosity over the past five years I have been a part of this remarkable team, some of the dearest moments to me are the ones spent in quiet and sincere conversation with so many of the faces I see here tonight. Over countless cups of coffee and far too many slices of Gracies’ bacon, you have shared your vision for our school and your hopes for your children with me. We have prayed, cried and laughed together, often forgetting the time and chatting effortlessly while the breakfast hour changes over to lunch. And when we realize the time, sometimes we just continue talking and sometimes we dash away to our various destinations. It has been these moments which have most inspired me to pursue with vigor the mission we have before us. Thank you, my friends, not only for giving so selflessly and generously, but for always taking time to share your heart. I really do have the best job in the world, and I am so excited about the path that lies before us together.
Tonight, this time, this reception has special meaning. For a few years, we have been saying thank you with notes and with Fox Meadows Ice Cream….which is really yummy, but we have not been able to see you and personally thank you.
I have to admit that my thankfulness for you all, for our donor community, has grown even as we have not been able to be together physically. You might have been out of sight, but believe us, you were not out of mind.
Thank you for standing with us as we battled through Covid. I think you will all agree that the moxie and the courage we saw on the part of our teachers was nothing short of amazing. Covid and the reaction to Covid stripped us of our classrooms, but our persistent faculty was up and running after only a week of learning how to manage online schooling. They fought to educate your children and grandchildren, but they could not have succeeded were it not for our donors. You provided the resources and the support to give us the ability to pivot and the confidence to follow Christ’s calling.
Then, as the world exploded into chaos and disarray, as much rational debate and discussion ceased, as too much education eroded into politics and advocacy, we held fast to our commitments to Christ, to our mission, and to you. Again, you were there supporting us, praying for and with us, and giving us the assurance that we were not walking alone.
Finally, as we faced an unprecedented time of enrollment growth and an opportunity to purchase our facility, you were there to provide the support needed, so that we could bid aggressively and wisely. We won the auction–even against an Amish bidder! No one beats the Amish at an auction! We were able to acquire our facility for $3.2 million—a facility and property that would have taken $12 million to replace.
Friends, your support is having an impact that is incalculable. Of course, I have always known this to be true, but I saw this so much more clearly over the past two years. Your support allowed us to keep moving forward. So many children were deprived of more than a year of education, but thankfully this was not the case for students at Veritas Academy. Your support enabled us to move forward. God brought us students and families from all over the world: from the Congo, Myanmar, Ukraine, and all over Lancaster County. They prospered because you provided. They will succeed because you invested. They will know more about Christ because you made our work possible.
We have a lot of work to do. We have some incredible opportunities on the horizon, and tonight has been a celebration of how far we have come. I don’t know if I have ever been more proud of our donors and more thankful for your support than I have been over these last few years. Thank you.
