Students and staff at Washington High School (WHS) recently received over $41,000 in scholarships and awards from the WHS Alumni Foundation. Through the generosity of alumni donors and sponsor families, the foundation was able to award student scholarships and awards, teacher grants, and classroom support for the 2024-2025 academic year.
“The extreme generosity of our alumni donors provided the opportunity to make this the foundation’s most prolific gift giving year ever. These gifts benefited teachers, students and student-athletes,” said president Steve Giudici, class of 1976.
The WHS Alumni Foundation began the school year attending the back-to-school teacher meeting and providing an opportunity drawing for 15 $100 gift cards. Teachers could choose what to do with the cards. Some teachers purchased special chocolate for the cooking class, clay to make dominos for art class and Spanish dictionaries for the Spanish classes.
After the back-to-school meeting, natural science teacher Megan Thaler approached the WHS Alumni Foundation hoping to replace the 1970s-era microscopes her students were currently using. The foundation made an initial grant allowing for some of the desired microscopes and a few advanced teacher microscopes to be purchased in the fall. After some additional community partnerships, the foundation provided a second grant to purchase the remaining microscopes needed.
Courtesy of Marijayne Stegman
Giudici lauded the community partnership that contributed to reaching the replacement goal: “We are particularly proud of teaming up with the Fremont Elks Lodge and others to replace all of the school’s 50-plus-year-old microscopes, a gift that will benefit every single student who attends Washington High!”
The foundation also received a large donation earmarked for sports programs, which they split between after-school sports and the P.E. department. New weight room equipment was purchased in sizes appropriate for both men and women. In addition, 10 lacrosse sticks (men’s team), 24 volleyballs (men’s and women’s teams), 10 golf bags with WHS logo (men’s and women’s teams) and safety equipment for the football team were purchased.
Another donation made in the memory of an alumna who recently passed away allowed the WHS Alumni Foundation to provide support supplies for the student mental health center.
At the senior awards night, the WHS Alumni Foundation awarded 19 scholarships ranging from $500 to $2,000 ($18,000 total) along with three $500 awards to this year’s Husky Award winners. Some awards are chosen by the sponsoring families and others by the foundation board.
Descriptions of the scholarships can be found on the WHS Alumni Foundation’s website at whsaf.org/scholarship-descriptions.
