Giving

Dear Friends of the Berkshire Waldorf High School,

Will you support our school and its programs, which, in Rudolf Steiner’s words, help to develop the “undefined rebels of the future”? “Undefined rebels” refers to those human beings who will meet our future—especially the challenges that we do not foresee—with courage, with creativity, and with empathy.

Creativity, courage, and empathy are strongly developed, for example, in our collaboration with Shakespeare & Company, in our athletic program, and in our foreign language travel program. As a small private school, however, the cost of these programs is substantial. Unlike public schools, we do not have hundreds of families from which to draw and we are not eligible for grants and taxpayer dollars that help public schools pay for similar programs.

We covered more than half the cost of the Shakespeare program through ticket sales and concessions. We fundraise weekly to support foreign travel for every student, regardless of means. We continually seek support for athletics. In these efforts, we rely on the generosity of those, like you, who believe in the value of our education and our mission: To provide an education for adolescents that seeks truth, develops imagination, nurtures growth, fosters responsibility, and honors inner freedom in an atmosphere of academic excellence, artistic fulfillment, openness, and mutual respect.

This year, our 55 students have the opportunity to take part in Shakespeare & Company’s Fall Festival. Last year, a number of our students chose to join approximately 300 students from nearby high schools for the event.

Our students attend “Common Core” classes in acting, stage fighting, dancing, and stage tech. Our enthusiastic directors from Shakespeare & Company, along with drama teacher Beth Robbins, hold seven weeks of rehearsals, working most evenings until 8 p.m. Last year, we sold out three shows at the Berkshire Theater Group’s Unicorn Theatre.

For the past two years, we’ve fielded full soccer teams without calling on local homeschoolers to fill them out. Like Shakespeare, athletics is expensive—including coaches, travel, uniforms and equipment, referees, and facilities rental (we have no fields or courts of our own). Sports cost at least as much as Shakespeare, and similar numbers of our students participate in the course of the school year. As small teams with great spirit, they develop maturity, courage, and creativity in the context of healthy competition.

This spring, our students will return to Munich for the seventh time in 16 years, and to Costa Rica for the very first time. The German students will stay with families in Munich and go to school there. The Spanish students will be traveling in Costa Rica and assisting with community projects. Both groups will immerse themselves in different languages and cultures. They will return changed, more mature, more courageous, more creative, and more empathetic than when they left.

Please give as generously as you can. Every gift, small or large, moves us closer to our goal, and every gift increases the percentage of our community that supports our work. Please help us achieve 100% participation from every constituency of our school—parents, teachers, trustees, alumni, alumni parents, and friends.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,