Learning their ABC’s

“Hello, I’m calling for the ABC House . . .” That was the opening line for Westminster SON (Serving Our Neighbors) volunteers in their annual quest to raise funds for the ABC House in Simsbury.

ABC stands for A Better Chance, a national program that provides scholarships to help gifted inner-city students gain a better education. The Simsbury ABC House actually houses students who are attending Simsbury High School, however, other ABC programs provide funds for Westminster’s ABC scholarship students.

The goal was to help raise more than $85,000 for the ABC House. The SON students were calling previous donors, as well as making “cold calls” to prospective donors, and they were very happy with the results they achieved. “It was well worth it, and we had a great deal of fun in the process,” said Clare Ulrich ’10. “We hope to have many more opportunities like this in the future to help out in our community.”

Faculty coordinator for the program, Gloria Connell, was amazed at how enthusiastic the students are in making their calls. “It’s especially nice having all of these students volunteering their time to help others, especially when they gave up precious personal time to do it,” she said.

This year’s participating SON members for the ABC Phone-a-thon were Anne Cervas’10, Tammie Moopenn’10, Clare Ulrich ’10, Sarah Ogden ’11, Kathryn Griffith ’11 and Katherine Cheng ’11.

In addition to working on the phone-at-thon, SON recently sponsored the annual Halloween dance with canned food donations going directly to the Simsbury Food Pantry.