Reaching out across 25 years

The Class of 1956, seeking to secure the future of its ReachOut ’56 community-service initiatives, has reached across the generations to join ranks with members of the Class of 1981.

The partnership, called ReachOut 56-81, hopes to build on past successes, according to Dan Gardiner ’56, chairman of the new group. These include the awarding of two ReachOut ’56 fellowships each year for the past seven years to graduating Princeton seniors who work with nonprofit organizations for a year on projects they have proposed. The new group also is expanding a ReachOut ’56 program that provides urban high school students with college and vocational counseling and mentoring.

Gardiner described the new partnership as “a very important interaction of the generations and a sharing of philosophies — the whole idea is to perpetuate these activities.”
 

The new partnership is “a very important interaction of the generations and a sharing of philosophies — the whole idea is to perpetuate these [community-service] activities.”

—Dan Gardiner '56

Contacts between the Class of ’56 and its “offspring” class, 1981, developed through Reunions activities, Gardiner said, and an important goal is to try to enlist the support of ’56’s “grandchild class,” the Class of 2006.

Jon Wonnell ’81, president of the new partnership, said that the Class of ’81 had supported the Princeton University Preparatory Program during its startup years, but began looking for new initiatives after PUPP secured its own funding. He said he hoped the new group would both expand existing service projects and serve as a “blueprint” for other Princeton classes to work together.