20 Year Anniversary
At 20 years old, the Oneness-Family School enters young adulthood. As befitting one who is coming of age, it is a time for us to celebrate where we are now and to reflect upon our accomplishments and our development during the past 20 years, even as we build the infrastructure and strategic plan to create a sustainable future. It is incumbent upon the 20 year old to look back into the past for insight. For even as they set their course to make their mark on the future, understanding from where they originated is crucial for manifesting who they are to become.
Hence, the end of our 2nd decade and start of our 3rd places the Oneness-Family School at a joyful juncture for two special celebratory events this spring.
20th Anniversary Spring Celebration & Children’s Art Miles Mural Project
In May, we will celebrate the School’s 20 years with our current parent community, a ‘Kick Up Your Heels’ anniversary party. Leading up to this event, some of our parents have organized a raffle for 20 unique prizes, with a play on the number 20. Each raffle ticket will cost $20 for a chance to win one or more of these 20 wonderful prizes: “20 Nationals tickets”, “20 mile retreat” at an exclusive West Virginia retreat and conference center, “20 great wines”, Segway Tour for two, 20 boxed sets of music, “20 great books for children”, “20 Expert Answers to 20 Questions” and much more! Proceeds from this raffle sale will go towards paying for the event and to the School’s Annual Fund.
Oneness-Family School will extend a special invitation to its students to represent our school in the International Art Miles Mural Project. The mural created by the School will be digitized by the Art Miles Mural Project team to create the "skin" that will cover a modular and mobile-framed pyramid. The pyramid will be unveiled in Egypt on the International Day of Peace, September 21, 2010 right next to the Great Pyramids of Giza. Throughout the year, the project will exhibit completed murals all over the world at different venues and conferences, galas, etc. to promote the beautiful work of the children. The faculty, staff and all the students, from our 2-year-old students to the Middle School students will collaborate to create this mural that will be viewed at the spring celebrations before being sent to the Art Miles Mural Project. Bring your sparkler minds, play clothes and a paintbrush!
20th Anniversary Alumni Reunion
In June, we have the opportunity to gather all our friends from the last 20 years for a process of re-discovery as we celebrate, connect and consider the spirit of the Oneness-Family School.
Our Alumni
For 20 years, the school has placed a high value on relationships. Parents, students, teachers, friends of the School - every person passing through its doors remain a part of the School’s legacy. Likewise, the School has impressed its vision and spirit on all who have come and gone.
In this 20th anniversary year, we have the opportunity to discover how the strands of the Oneness vision have moved outward and affected each person’s life. Gathering our alumni together will weave the threads back toward the School. We will discover which texture, fabric and shape our blanket of values, laid gently over each individual, has produced.
Students who started here 20 years ago are now entering their own adulthood. In a sense, they are at the same point as the School, discovering who they are and where they want to go. Have they have walked a parallel course with the School? What experiences found at Oneness-Family School contribute to their lives today? These are the questions we will ask as we meet up with these individuals.
What will success for this event look like?
Our goal for the Alumni Reunion encompasses reaching out and connecting with the students, parents and teachers who have made Oneness what is it today. 500 students, ranging in age from 3 through 30, form the basis of the Oneness alumni community. Some students who are old enough will be contacted directly; younger students will be reached through their parents. Former teachers will also be contacted.
Although this seems like a daunting task, the number of people who attend the Reunion event will not measure success. Rather, it will be marked by the enthusiasm generated by students, parents and teachers as they reconnect with old friends and their roots at the school.
Already we have started to reach our goal. In starting the Facebook group and announcing the Reunion, old friends have reconnected. Listen to the words of some of our alumni we have contacted:
“I am so happy the school decided to reach out to alumni. I always loved my friends from Oneness and I often wondered what happened to them.”
“I'm so glad you found me on here!”
“I loved Oneness so I am so happy you reached out to me. I am so excited to hear [about the Reunion] since I have always wanted to reconnect with those in my class.”
The purpose of the Reunion is much broader than the fabulous party we plan to have on June 12, 2009. As we extend our invitation, some will respond, others will not. But most will remember the small and intimate moments from their childhood spent at the School. Whether or not they attend the event, we will be reaching out and sewing together these dispersed threads, and along the way we will generate smiles and connections! The goal will be to re-instill and invigorate the vision of Oneness into the hearts of all those connected so they can carry it into their lives and into the world.
On the path of reconnecting
The enthusiasm generated by connecting people to each other will inspire the party and outlast the event itself. We intend that the energy generated will not only produce a fun party, reconnections from the past, but also contribute to the schools sustainable development as alumni and their families invest themselves back into the school.
To facilitate that, an Alumni Program needs to be developed. This will include a working Alumni database, which will be generated as we find people to invite to the Reunion. Other aspects to develop will be an Alumni page on our database where we keep up with former students and parents, and continue to connect people to each other.
We are more than the present. We are the past and the future as well. Our alumni reunion will connect these strands and act as a catalyst to propel the school and sustain it in the future.
|
