An Extremely Successful Event

I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate Sue Oleszewski and her Looking Out For Kids team in making this year's event extremely successful and enjoyable. Philadelphia Eagles legend and Villanova graduate Brian Westbrook and Dr. Janet Samuels, Superintendent of the Norristown Area School District honored us by co-hosting the event. Helping to make the event even more successful was our own Andy Gurwood, who served as our masterful emcee for the evening. I don't think there's a hat he doesn't own (you'd have to have been there to see it!). What a great turnout - over 300 people to include several of our Board of Trustees, many faculty, community leaders and alumni. I understand this is the best attendance over the 7 years we've been doing this wonderful event!  When all was said and done, most of the items up for auction were gone and folks were loading up their cars with all their goodies at the end of the evening (I particularly like the Ryobi tools I won :-)),  thus making this a huge success.

I want to personally thank everyone involved in this great effort, especially our corporate and private sponsors - who without their support and generosity, this never would have been possible. This year we were lucky to have an extra-special participant, local (and very accomplished) artist Elynne Rosenfeld Allenson, who donated one piece of her very beautiful work to the silent auction and contributed 30% of the proceeds for anything she sold during the evenings festivities. Due to popular demand (and the fact that her artwork looks so great in the Hafter Center), Elynne has agreed to keep her work at the Hafter Center for this coming week with the same offer to contribute 30% of her proceeds to the Looking Out For Kids charity!  Thanks Elynne!!!  I would encourage anyone who's local to check out her work.

Finally, as we begin our week at Salus, I will be working closely with the President's Council to complete our preparatory work for the upcoming off-site this coming Thursday and Friday.  I sense a good deal of excitement (at least I know I'm excited about it) about the off-site as we take the input from my 100 Days of Listening, combine that with already established University priorities to forge our path into the future.   I will be sure to keep everyone informed about the progress we make.   Wishing you all a great week!