June 24, 2013 Kingston: A generous donation from SAHS ‘Old Girl’ Beverley Wong to the SAHS Foundation’s Science Lab Renovation project celebrates and memoralises her mother’s firm decision that St Andrew be the first choice for her eldest daughter’s high school education. Both Lab 33 honouring Beverley’s parents, Olive and John Wong, and Lab 36 will be renovated this summer, leaving only one lab left to complete the Foundation’s renovation project in 2014.
“I wanted Immaculate” Beverley Wong recalls “because all my friends were there or at Alpha but my mother insisted that St Andrew was to be my first choice. This was a decision that I never regretted. I made lifelong friends at St Andrew, got a really good education and hard work was deeply instilled”.
Beverley, a retired UNICEF finance and accounts manager who resides in south Florida graduated St Andrew High School in 1957 and is a University of Kentucky graduate. Her parents will be honoured on the science lab plaque outside Lab 33.
Beverley’s commitment to give back to the school labs was re-ignited in 2011 when she attended her class reunion as part of the school’s 85th anniversary celebration. Thereafter she made contributions to the Foundation annually, but this year’s recent Science Lab Renovation appeals strengthened her resolve to make it happen and she did.
Beverley handed her donation to a delighted Foundation Chair Dr Deanna Ashley and Vice Chair, Ambassador Pat Durrant on June 5, 2013. “We are highly appreciative of this single generous contribution from Beverley“ Dr Ashley said. “We were proceeding in faith that we would have enough to complete two labs this summer. Our success in getting three labs renovated in two years is largely due to alumnae donations that continue to come in all amounts and ways – large, small, monthly and annually. Now thanks to Beverley and other grateful alumnae we only have one more lab to go!”
The SAHS Foundation’s Science Lab Renovation project undertaken in 2012 to restore four labs built in 1944 targeted raising USD $300,000.Alumnae and corporate donations, and fundraising events to date have raised USD $250,000 making possible the renovation of three of the four science labs. Donations and fundraising efforts are now targeted for 2014 on the fourth lab at a cost of USD $50,000.
Donations to the Science Lab Renovation project can be made online or directly to the SAHS Foundation, 10 Cecelio Avenue, Kingston 10, Jamaica.