Pat Thompson, current John’s Island Community Service League president, welcomed guests to the group’s 37th annual luncheon last Monday at the John’s Island Golf Club. The luncheon featured keynote speaker Laura Rebell Gross, who spoke about the remarkable Young Women’s Leadership Network.
Before Gross spoke, Thompson related that JICSL fundraising efforts began in 1980 when it formed when they raised $25,000 through their Tambourine Thrift Shop. This past year they raised an incredible $904,107, funneling the money back into the community through grants toward the operational expenses of 38 nonprofit organizations and scholarships to children of John’s Island employees.
“That’s more than we’ve ever given,” said Thompson, noting that the league has become considerably more than just a fundraising vehicle. “We are out in the community leading the way. We’re in the trenches; we are changing people’s minds. We really have become a major force in this community.”
Woodhouse, JICSL first vice president, introduced and shared the impressive accomplishments of Laura Rebell Gross, whose mother and stepfather, Susan and Peter Solomon, are John’s Island residents.
Gross began her relationship with the flagship Young Women’s Leadership School of Harlem in 1998. After moving to Rochester, N.Y., the mother of three – husband Michael is an orthopedic trauma surgeon – co-founded the Young Women’s College Prep Charter School, before returning to NYC, where she is now YWLN Managing Director of Girls’ Education.
YWLN was founded in 1996 by Ann Rubenstein Tisch, who partnered with the NYC Board of Education to open the first public all-girls school in the United States in 30 years. There are now five NYC schools and their extraordinary success has inspired the development of affiliated single-sex schools throughout the country. Its College Bound Initiative assists both boys and girls and, thanks to community support, YWLN has provided more than $65 million in financial aid awards.
“Today more than ever before in the United States, women are achieving great success,” said Gross before remarking that despite great strides, men still earn more than women in nearly every field and occupy more than 90 percent of top positions.
Gross said Tisch recognized that providing girls with a high-quality, single-sex education gives them an advantage in life. She wanted to give inner-city girls the same standard of education afforded students in elite all-girl private schools.
Their success has been nothing short of miraculous. Under the tutelage of highly-trained, dedicated teachers and counselors, students have a graduation rate of more than 96 percent and a college acceptance rate of nearly 100 percent. Students have obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees from some of the top colleges and universities in the country and the schools’ alumnae are achieving outstanding success in their careers.
“There was lots of opposition, but it was also hugely supported by the board of education, the city school chancellor and the mayor. The school was an unprecedented public/private partnership; a public school with a private school mission,” said Gross. “Our girls came to school every day in their uniforms, ready and excited to learn.”
Stressing that they provide all the essential elements to help girls build the confidence they will need, she added, “We teach our student to know that they’re valuable just by being themselves. As a result, when our students get to college, they not only have a voice, they know how to use it. We want our students to know that they are capable of being tomorrow’s engineers, financial advisers, nonprofit leaders and business executives. In fact, we are counting on them to lead our country forward.”