On Monday, July 28, 2014, four Tri-County Scholarship Fund recipients had the opportunity to address 100 executives and senior finance professionals from The Chubb Corporation in Warren, NJ. Three were Tri-County alumni and one is a rising senior at Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus. Tri-County Scholarship Fund serves economically disadvantaged children in Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties.
This event was a follow-up to the 67th annual Hendon Chubb golf outing in June. There, Tri-County volunteers manned two “on the green” fundraisers as well as a 50/50 at the luncheon. This initiative on the part of Chubb enabled Tri-County to raise $4,000 in scholarships for New Jersey inner-city children to attend private schools. (http://www.tcsfund.org/stories/chubb-golf-2014/)
“The Year of Helping Others” is the name that the finance department of Chubb has given to its charitable work in 2014. At the invitation of Ricky Spiro, Chubb’s CFO, these four student ambassadors spoke. Angeline Lopez is a senior at Villanova University with a major in accounting; Aimee Zanabria is a Junior at Cornell with a major in Animal Science; Julie Gamarra is a Junior at Felician College with a major in Physical Therapy (all on full scholarships!) and Kevin Arias is a rising senior at Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus. Angeline is from Morris Plains while Aimee, Julie and Kevin are from Paterson, which has a high school graduation rate of 46%. By contrast, Tri-County students have a 98% graduation rate, and 98% of them go straight to college, often the first in their families to do so. These students spoke eloquently about the life-changing difference that a scholarship to private school made to them.
At the conclusion of their comments, the entire room of Chubb professionals broke into groups of 10 to brainstorm about what else they could do to help the children of Tri-County. Ideas flowed freely: a winter coat drive, a holiday basket drive, a scholarship fundraiser, a financial literacy workshop, help with the Fund’s investments, a college essay prep session, leadership training, cultural events etc. After much animated discussion, the top two ideas from each group were shared. As these ideas are refined and finalized, they will be presented to Mr. Spiro in the form of recommendations for future action on the part of Chubb’s finance department.
Mr. Spiro got up at the end of the session to make some concluding remarks. Overall, the event was a huge success. To top it off, a few days after the meeting, Angeline called the Tri-County office to tell us that she has been offered a job as an auditor at Ernst and Young upon graduation next year! We have no doubt that Angie will continue to be a great ambassador for Tri-County. And, for the icing on the cake, two other Chubb donations came in, resulting in a total of $12,000.00, the equivalent of three high school scholarships.
We hope that your company can help the children of Tri-County like The Chubb Corporation is doing. If you have ideas or questions, give us a call at (973) 984-9600 or visit the website at www.tscfund.org. For more information on our October 20 dinner with FOX news commentator Bill O’Reilly, please see the website.
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