Mr. Harris, Best Champion of All

This week, our beloved Assistant Principal Mr. Danny Harris proved his dedication to our school and students in a manner unlike any other administrator before him.

First, a little background to understand why.

Over the past several weeks, we celebrated “Alumni Champions,” who voluntarily (!) agreed to raise money for one full tuition scholarship. Together, the 16 alumni raised $8,843 on crowdrise.com, using prizes, bribes and some healthy competition. All that money is matched by the AVI CHAI Foundation.

Still, we were $1,157 short of our $10,000 goal. To fill that gap, we reached out to our senior class as “Almost Alumni.” If every senior personally gave or solicited $18 on behalf of our campaign, we would just reach our goal. More importantly, our seniors would recognize that they are soon to join the generations of alumni before them who enable us to provide tuition relief to so many of our students. We divided the seniors into four teams, with four captains at the helm. In less than one week, the seniors raised an astounding $3,401, 3x our goal!

Now, back to Mr. Harris. For he was the reason our students were so motivated. You see, the winning team captain was to throw a pie at Mr. Harris. And because he loves our school and our students, and because he is so beloved, he actually agreed to this hilarity. And while one might wonder about the sanity of a principal who amicably receives a pie in the eye, any student of Mr. Harris knows that the close relationship of mutual respect between Academy students and him is only reinforced by the warmheartedness that he often displays.

No doubt this culmination of our Almost Alumni campaign will remain one of our seniors’ best Academy Stories.

And so, to you, Mr. Harris, we salute you, as our campaign’s Best Champion of All!