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Missing hand sanitizer, great memories
When I drove onto the Ransom Campus this morning and saw the banner advertising this year’s auction, I couldn’t help but reflect on last year’s event – which took place just five days before we moved our instruction to Remote RE. Within a week our campuses were fully closed. The day before the event we put in place what we thought were sensible precautions: cleaning up eating areas quickly, bussing glasses as soon as they were abandoned, and scattering about pump bottles of hand sanitizer that we had been stockpiling since February. I still don’t really know what Boho is, but I made a mad dash to Nordstrom Rack hours before the event and wore the best Boho I could find. I did not do very well. I also bid on a gym membership I knew I probably wouldn’t use. We ate delicious food, buffet-style, we danced with abandon, and we had fun.
To our knowledge there were no cases of COVID-19 in Miami, and we carried on as usual, somewhat blissfully unaware of what was lurking around the corner. During clean up at the end of the night, Erick Ceballos, our director of facilities, approached me. “Penny,” he said somberly, “they took all the hand sanitizer.”
I laughed then, and I’m still smiling nearly a year later. There is no denying it: those hand sanitizer dispensers might have been the most valuable items carried home that evening. As far as Erick knew, no one took the toilet paper. We had no idea on that beautiful Saturday what the next week – and year – would bring.
Eleven months later, we are wiser, weary – and very much in need of a good party.
Fortunately, we have one lined up for this Saturday night. This year’s auction will be remote, and I promise you it will be fabulous because REPA is in charge of it. Supporting the event has never been more important. Every penny – no pun intended – raised goes to RE’s financial aid program. We have never needed that financial support more than this past year; in fact, in response to the pandemic, Ransom Everglades issued more than $500,000 in emergency aid to RE families. (Our total aid topped $7 million.) We also need financial aid to continue to make RE accessible to students of promise who otherwise would not benefit from this amazing place.
If you don’t have your ticket, now is the time to get it. Admission is free. Click here to start bidding and buy raffle tickets for great prizes.
Every year the REPA auction brings out the best in our great community. I laugh about the purloined hand sanitizer, but I also remember last year’s event to be the last time we gathered as a community. I also remember it as the last time I was in the compassionate and reassuring presence of Dr. Eugene Sayfie whom we lost to the pandemic early on. This has been a painful year, but we are resilient and deeply connected to one another. As the banner touts: The futuRE is ours.
Penny Townsend
Head of School
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Middle School
2045 South Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 250 6850
Upper School
3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 460 8800
Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.