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The Exceeding Expectations Education Fund
One of the most important goals of Exceeding Expectations is to see to it that the kids get as much education as they're capable of absorbing. Sometimes that means making sure they're not forced by circumstances to drop out of high school. For our older kids with college ambitions, we try to help cover costs for things like tuition and books. Any team members with special talent, we look for ways to help them develop their skills to the fullest of their potential.
As always, the more money we have, the more we can do. Funding individual kids is tricky, because it always has to be weighed against the ongoing financial requirements of the rest of the team.
We're pleased to announce that it just got a little easier. Thanks to a very generous donation from Don Reilly and his son Frank, of Reilly Financial Advisors of San Diego, we've established the Exceeding Expectations Education Fund which will allow us to help individual team members, designated "EE Scholars," to defray the costs of pursuing ongoing learning.
We intend to provide scholarships, in amounts varying according to the need, for:
Wasting no time, we've already named the first three EE Scholars:
Josh Rodriguez: You may remember that this talented violinist was chosen to be one of the youngest members of the San Bernardino School District's Honor Orchestra. We've helped with the costs of a week-long violin camp in Colorado that Josh attended to further hone his skills.
Miguel Ibara: This budding pianist was one of the kids who entertained us after our Swimathon event last January. But you can only go so far on what a financially strapped public school is able to provide, so we arranged for private lessons from a dedicated teacher. (Read an essay by Miguel on what it means to him to be an EE triathlete.)
Nik Keller: Nik graduated high school two weeks ago with a 4.0 and a string of special honors. He was accepted at UC San Diego but the costs are more than the family could handle, so now he has an EE scholarship to help with tuition.
We'll be announcing new EE Scholars as the need arises. For those of you who have been generous to the kids in the past and plan to continue helping in the future, you should know that you can direct all or part of your donations be applied to the Education Fund, but we'll also replenish it from the general fund as required.
A great big thanks to Don and Frank, who are making a real difference by putting their money where their hearts are.
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