What A Weekend! 🌶️🌳
Stone Community,
As many of you know, we opened April with two very important and very different goals for our community:
Reduce our carbon footprint by planting 2,000 trees;
And, raise $50,000 of support for our Need Blind/financial aid program at the 6th Annual Chili Cook-Off.
Today, I am so pleased to share with you the news that we didn’t just meet those two goals…we smashed them!
Let’s start with trees. Led by STEM Department/Sustainability Committee chair Molly Holden and Student Body Presidents James Adams and Dhruvan Sundaram, our community planted 5613 trees between April 6th and April 21st. That’s an incredible 5613 trees in 16 days, that’s enough trees to offset 100% of the harm we create annually by riding to school in cars and buses.
Now, let’s talk #CCO24. Fittingly, we planted the 5,000th tree on Saturday, April 20th, just a few hours before our community gathered for the 6th Annual Chili Cook-Off. With such thanks to everyone who participated in the event – everyone who donated auction items and experiences, everyone who purchased a ticket, everyone who bid and won items, everyone who supported the $10,0000 Thermometer, everyone who volunteered and helped execute the event, everyone who sponsored the event – we raised an extraordinary $66,500.00 of support for Stone’s Need Blind program.
All of which means that by Saturday, April 20th, we all worked collectively to reduce our total institutional carbon footprint by 37% and fund the total cost of five tuition lines at Stone.
The work this month is a testament to the values shared across all corners of this remarkable community, is a testament to the way we practice care for our students and for our world. We have so much to celebrate on the horizon (specifically, the inimitable and indomitable Class of 2024), but today I hope we can step back and celebrate what we have accomplished already – I couldn’t possibly be more proud to be a member of this community and all that we are able to accomplish together.
I wish each of you a restful and restorative weekend. With such deep gratitude,
Mike Simpson, Head of School
(None of our successes in April would be possible without the 35 amazing sponsors who made it all possible: Chas and Samantha Kurtz, ProAsys, Karen Linder and Jim Blickle, The Stone Independent School Board of Trustees, The Staszak Family, The Do Family, The Class of 2024, The Humbert Family, Heritage Creek Farm Camp, The Kager Family, The Billett Family, The Jacobs-Harrison-Inman Family, Voltaggio Consulting, LLC, JML Ingredients, The Kauffmans, Christian Brothers Automotive, Construction Masters Services, Holden Finn, Maley Rivard Family, The Kacsmar-Bradley Family, Cracked Pepper Catering, Kelly Whalen Brandsmith, Veleska Jewelry, The Simpson Family, The Musselman Family, the Astarita Family, David Lyall Home Design, Areliz and Jeffrey Cruz, Paul and Judy Ware, the Hawkins/Jackson Family, the Sundaram Family, and Tellus 360.
And especially Tranzact, Inc (the one and only Carolina Reaper) and Jerry and Jane Scull (our first ever own Pepper X), whose red-hot support helped us surpass all of our goals.)