PRESIDENT’S
REPORT
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Winston
Churchill
June 30, 2015
To paraphrase a well-known movie,
“It’s a Wonderful Year.” Last year, the
Board of Directors went out on a limb and chose to give out $1,000 HOST Program
awards to 22 students from 17 Ottawa high schools, an increase of six awards. Based
on my financial estimate, this commitment would force us to deplete our reserve
by about $6,000. The dilemma is always
to balance the number of awards against current and expected future donations. We strive to make sure that, if most of our
recipients are not yet in grade 12, we will be able to support them through
graduation. To our surprise and extreme
gratitude, this year’s donations exceeded my estimates by over $14,000!
In June, the Board was once again
faced with the same dilemma: by how much can we increase the number of awards
and not risk our ability to support recipients until graduation? I am delighted
to announce that we will add 13 schools and give out 34 awards next year.
These
are the 30 schools that will participate in the HOST Program in 2015-16:
Current
schools New schools
Cairine Wilson Canterbury Bell
Brookfield
Colonel By Garneau
Glebe Collegiate
Institute Hillcrest
Gisèle-Lalonde
Gloucester Lisgar Collegiate Louis
Riel
Immaculata Lester B. Pearson Merivale
Notre
Dame
Mother Teresa Rideau Ottawa
Technical Institute Sir Guy Carleton
Ridgemont Sir Wilfrid Laurier St.
Francis Xavier St.
Joseph
St. Matthew St. Patrick Woodroffe
St. Paul St. Peter
St. Pius
We are very excited that we are
getting closer to our goal of supporting at least one student from each of the
51 youth high schools in Ottawa. In
order to accomplish this feat, we need your continued support. If you are a donor, I will send out a reminder
email to you on the one-year anniversary of your donation. Please renew your donation so we can continue
to support students in need of our help to graduate high school.
In
April, we welcomed four new members to the Board of Directors:
·
David
Hill, Q.C. O.C
· Carman Joynt
· Dena Splinter
· Michael van Aanhout
They bring experience and skills that
will allow us to continue to expand our reach into the community. At the same time, we said goodbye to Leanne
Bergeron whose increased workload as a school Guidance Counsellor limited her
availability to the Board.
As usual, I have included a financial
statement as well as excerpts from the letters that I have received from this
year’s recipients. I hope you enjoy
reading them; they clearly demonstrate the impact that your donations are
making on these students’ lives.
If you have any questions or
comments, please email me at rlussier@rogers.com. Our web site, www.host-program.org, has been
re-designed to make it easier to navigate.
You will find information about our Board of Directors, previous President’s Reports and excerpts from
every letter that we have received from the recipients.
With my best
regards and good wishes for a safe and enjoyable summer.
Richard Lussier
(613)
830-3633