It is always hard to highlight just one gift, as each and every one is important—none more than another. There is one gift, though, that we think tells a particularly important story of how alumni have made an indelible mark on Beaver. Alumnus Bruce Berkowitz ’76 and his wife, Tracey, made the first gift—a gift of $2.5 million through The Fairholme Foundation in early 2015—to the $25M Future Is Here Campaign to give confidence to our vision for what learning spaces at Beaver could look like.
We were overwhelmed by his powerful story of how Beaver shaped his life. You can imagine, then, how incredible and very grateful we were when the Berkowitz family added $600,000 in scholarship support to fund two students from his hometown of Chelsea for their six-year journey at Beaver. In making this additional commitment, Bruce honored Joel Uchenick, the mentor that he credits with encouraging him to attend Beaver. “Tracey and I believe deeply that education is the single greatest way we can give back—at Beaver and elsewhere.”
Those two students, who joined our school in 2016 and graduated in 2023, made a tremendous impact during their Beaver years. Both graduates are now thriving in their college journeys.
The impact Bruce and Tracey made was generous, rewarding, and a wonderful example of the mark we want Beaver to make on our alumni—and that our alumni will make on the world. It should come as no surprise Bruce was presented with Beaver’s 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award. Upon receiving the award, Bruce shared that one of the welcome gifts Beaver gave him earlier that day was a copy of his Beaver transcript from December 1974, which Bruce quoted to the audience: ‘We want [Bruce] to succeed, and we will help support him. He deserves every opportunity to learn now, and to make Beaver work for him.’