Alumnae Involvement

The quality of Miss Porter’s School, and the quality of education its students receive, is only as strong as those who believe in it and work on its behalf. Porter’s is fortunate to benefit every year from the service of more than 500 Ancients and family members who volunteer to serve the school. For those of you who are sharing your time and talent, we give our thanks, as you are truly helping to “shape a changing world” one girl at a time.

VOLUNTEER FOR MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL

We are driven and uplifted by the dedication of our volunteers. If you are interested in joining this dedicated cadre of volunteers, below are some ways you can volunteer for Porter’s. If interested, please contact the Alumnae & Development Office at alumnaerelations@missporters.org for more information or fill out the Volunteer Interest Form.

Both in-person and virtual

  • Act as representatives of the school for all Ancients and act as the voice of the Ancient community to the school. 
  • The Alumnae Board (AB) consists of the Officer Group (two co-presidents, two co-vice presidents and a secretary) and four committees: Nominating; Advancement; Connections & Events; and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. 
  • Each AB member (including the Officer Group) is assigned to serve on a committee and works throughout the year to accomplish goals set by the group. The full Alumnae Board meets three times a year (twice in person and once virtually) and each committee meets monthly. 
  • The AB has a minimum of 19 members and a maximum of 28. Currently, there are 28 members. 
  • Frequency: Ongoing; 3-year term
  • Time commitment: Depending on the role you serve, between 3 and 15 hours per month.
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Virtual

  • Class Reps are responsible for being the main facilitator(s) for engaging their class, updating their class on upcoming Ancient events and changes at school, and empowering them to make their best gift to the MPS Annual Fund.
  • Roles and Responsibilities:
    • Attend volunteer training sessions whenever possible, in person or virtually.
    • Organize and support activities to encourage classmates to keep in touch with each other and Miss Porter’s School.
    • Keep in touch with classmates in person, by phone, by mail, or by email and by using social media.
    • Utilize the Volunteer Management System (VMS), to see class giving history data, to utilize email templates and send emails and to track your class. Please contact the A&D team if you have not registered or need assistance with the VMS.
  • Frequency: Ongoing;  Five-year volunteer appointments culminating at Reunion, but with the option for at least signing on for one fiscal year (July 1-June 30) to see if the role would be a fit for them. 
  • Time Commitment: 30 minutes – 3 hours monthly, depending on the time of year that correlates with a fundraising event.
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Virtual

  • The DEIB Committee falls under the umbrella of the Alumnae Board of Directors, but is unique in that non-Alumnae Board members can serve on the committee. Members of the DEIB Committee are voted on by the committee. The goals of the committee are:
    • To serve as a resource on DEIB for other committees of the Alumnae Board.
    • To incubate new projects and initiatives that address inclusion and belonging among Ancients. 
    • To continue to provide regular opportunities, including through the Foundational Series, for Ancients to meet virtually to talk and learn about inclusion and belonging, 
    • To better understand the needs and interests of Ancients, particularly those who are from historically marginalized groups.
  • Frequency: Ongoing; no official term limit
  • Time Commitment: Depending on your role and project load, between 1 and 5 hours per month
  •  

In-person or virtual

  • Share aspects of your career with current Miss Porter’s School students. 
  • Frequency: Once
  • Time Commitment: Less than 2 hours
  •  

Virtual

  • MPS Amplifiers use their social media influence to promote MPS events and news through Instagram, Facebook, Email, Linkedin, Graduway, and/or Twitter.
  • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Repost content from MPS social media channels
    • Post about events happening in your area that are in partnership with MPS. 
    • Conduct social media takeovers on the MPSAncients page where you have the page in your creative social hands for the week. 
    • Spread information and connect with Ancients through social media.  
  • Frequency: As often as you’d like
  • Time Commitment: any amount you can give!

In-person

  • Day of Service provides a wonderful way for Ancients to connect with one another in their region and participate in a local activity that serves the needs of their community.
  • Volunteers for Day of Service are expected to help plan and execute the service event in their region and communicate with local Ancients to encourage participation and share the event with the larger Ancient population.
  • Frequency: Once per year or every other year
  • Time commitment: Varies, but approximately 5 hours over the course of a few months (including the duration of the event).
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In-person

  • Ancient volunteers are needed to serve as panelists for this annual event for seniors.Through small group discussion, Imagining Life is intended to create meaningful dialogue between MPS seniors and Ancients about the challenges and rewards of adulthood and how Miss Porter’s prepares students to “shape a changing world.” The objective is for students to hear from Ancients and learn that no two paths are alike. 
  • Frequency: Once
  • Time Commitment: Travel time and 5+ hours on campus for the event
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Virtual 

  • Often, there will be a specific project or initiative that needs fleshing out. If you have expertise in a certain area and would be willing to join a brainstorming session or working group, these periodic opportunities may suit you! This is also why it is important to keep your industry and employment information up-to-date, so that you can be searched for when we need specific skill sets.
  • Frequency: Sporadic
  • Time Commitment: any amount you can give!
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Both in-person and virtual

  • As Regional Club Head we want you to plan and participate in local events, communicate with Ancients about events in your area, and share updates, and invitations from Miss Porter’s School with your local network. 
  • The Alumnae and Development Office will help you identify Ancients in your area, brainstorm engagement opportunities, create invitation templates, and coordinate larger events like Day of Service and Worldwide Sit-Down Dinner.
  • Frequency: Ongoing; no official term limit
  • Time Commitment: Varies
  •  

Both in-person and virtual

  • This role, in partnership with the Alumnae Relations Office, leads the class planning and outreach. Duties include communicating with the entire class to ensure maximum attendance at Reunion; recruiting, leading, and motivating the Reunion committee volunteers; and of course, attending the Reunion celebration!
  • Frequency: Ongoing in the 9-12 months leading up to the fall reunion.
  • Time Commitment: 1 hour per month
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In-person

  • The Worldwide Sit-Down Dinner (WWSDD) tradition is more about gathering together with fellow Ancients and less about the formal structure of a dinner, so the event can truly be whatever you want it to be: a dinner, appetizers, happy hour, brunch, or a casual get together for coffee and bagels. The most important part is the connections made as Ancients.
  • Examples of “dinners” could be hosting a potluck at your home, renting a picnic table at a park and asking guests to bring their own lunch, or holding the event at a restaurant. 
  • Hosts are expected to plan the event, communicate with their guests, and share photos with the Alumnae and Development Office. One Ancient either pays for the event or coordinates a system for guests to contribute or split the costs.
  • Frequency: Once per year
  • Time Commitment: Varies, but approximately 10 hours over the course of a few months (including the duration of the event).
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ANCIENT AWARDS

The Daisy Pin is the highest award given by the Alumnae Association. It is presented for outstanding service to Miss Porter’s School.

The Evan Burger Donaldson ’51 Achievement Award is commensurate with the Daisy Pin and is given biennually to recognize an Ancient who has worked to better the changing world we share and shape.

PAST DAISY PIN RECIPIENTS

1963: Mrs. Robert Porter Keep
1963: Margaret Porter Ijams 1912
1963: Ellenor Cook Lane 1915
1963: Katharine Bunker Parsons 1918
1963: Eleanor Ames Powell ’24
1963: Mary DuBois Schwarz ’29
1963: Annie Burr Auchincloss Lewis 1920
1965: Mrs. Hollis French
1965: Harriet McClure Stuart 1907
1967: Anna Matheson Wood 1901
1969: Katharine Derr Barney 1918
1970: Dorothy Dennis Marsh 1910
1973: Nancy Fenton Perkins ’35
1973: Gloria Barnes Van Norden ’41
1979: Elizabeth Buffinton Briggs ’44
1980: Polly Fenton Dickerson ’37
1980: Alice Rutgers Dodge ’37
1981: Emily Parsons Ridgway ’29
1982: Louisa Copeland Duemling ’54
1984: Margaret Porter Davis ’52
1984: Lynn Weyerhaeuser Day ’49
1984: Elizabeth Hanavan Hube
1986: Caroline Morgan Macomber ’50
1988: Margaret Taube Harper ’53
1989: Edwina Shea Millington ’49
1990: Lucy Pulling Cutting ’54
1993: Rachel Hammond Breck ’25
1994: Emily Ridgway Crisp ’59
1994: Eleanor Ashforth Harvey ’43
1995: Marie Powell Hincks ’45
1996: Jean Marckwald Chapin ’56
1997: Alice Babst Bent ’27
1997: Sally du Pont Cahill ’47
1999: Judy Olin Higgins ’54
2002: Virginia Wells Truesdale ’52
2003: Isabel Morrell Beadleston ’28
2004: Missie Rennie Taylor ’64
2005: Edith McBride Bass ’50
2005: Beverley Waud Sutherland ’55
2006: Marianna Mead O’Brien, P ’74, ’76, ’78
2007: M. Burch Tracy Ford
2008: Elizabeth Mead Merck ’38
2009: Barbara Higgins Epifanio ’79
2012: Mimi Colgate Kirk ’57
2013: Judith Milliken Holden ’68
2014: Margaret Nash Gifford ’48
2015: Anne Stillman Nordeman ’65
2018: Nancy Klingenstein Simpkins ’74
2022: Gaylynn A. Burroughs ’95

EVAN BURGER DONALDSON ’51 ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

The Evan Burger Donaldson ’51 Achievement Award was established to honor Mrs. Donaldson, an Ancient and Trustee who served others through hands-on work with organizations such as Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the New York Women’s Foundation, and the Ackerman Institute for Family Therapy, as well as Miss Porter’s School. This award has been made possible by the generosity of William H. Donaldson.

The Evan Burger Donaldson ’51 Achievement Award is commensurate with the Daisy Pin as one of the school’s highest honors. As the Daisy Pin recognizes exceptional service on behalf of the school, this award recognizes outstanding service to the larger community. The recipient will have worked to better the changing world we share and shape. This award will be presented biennially to an Ancient whose dedication to service to others is exemplary.

Past award recipients

1998: Elizabeth May ’72
Executive Director, Sierra Club of Canada

2001: Elizabeth Cushman Putnam ’51
Founder, Student Conservation Association

2003: Agnes Gund ’56
Founder, A Studio in a School, Chairman
Emerita, Museum of Modern Art, Chair, and
NYC Arts Commission

2005: Isabel Van Devanter Sawhill ’55
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute

2007: India Howell ’75
Founder, Rift Valley Children’s Village,
Tanzanian Children’s Fund and Rift Valley
Children’s Fund

2009: Tracy D. Gary ’69
Donor, activist and philanthropist. Founder and
President, Inspired Legacies

2011: Louisa Copeland Duemling ’54
Philanthropist and conservationist

2015: Louise Vietor Oliver ’62
U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO.
Expert in education, philanthropy and public policy

2017: Anne Firestone Ball ’51
Community volunteer and philanthropist

2019: Josephine Brodhead Moore ’68
Co-Founder and President Emerita, The Neighborhood Academy
Master of Divinity, advocate for social justice

2022: Vanessa Roanhorse ’96
Co-Founder, Native Women Lead
CEO of Roanhorse Consulting LLC

Please fill in Nominee's Information below

To nominate an Ancient for the Evan Burger Donaldson ’51 Achievement Award, please fill in the nominee’s information on the form below. Nominations must be received by July 1, 2025.

Among the students of today are the leaders of tomorrow who will have to wrestle with the ongoing problems of poverty, illness, education, toxic wastes, the eldery, and so on. I believe if we can make students aware at an early age of the many needs in a community, they will carry this concern with them into adulthood."

— Evan Burger Donaldson '51
ALUMNAE BOARD 2022/23

The Alumnae Association of Miss Porter’s School is committed to affirming the relationship between Ancients and the school, fostering bonds between its Ancients, and encouraging Ancients to play an active role in the continued success of the school.

Porters Location 004 1

Officers

Sharifah Holder ’06, Co-President
Patricia Mueller ’74, Co-President
Saba Brelvi ’91, Co-Vice President
Caroline Dean ’07, Co-Vice President
Christina L. “Chrissy” Cox ’93, Recording Secretary

Board of Directors

Danielle M. Benjamin ’00
Elizabeth L. Blanchfield ’87
Callie F. Brzezinski ’16
Kelsey L. Burns ’12
Ashley Green Dorin ’97
Paula L. Fernandez-Baca ’08
Mayanthi L. Fernando ’93
Anique C. Gorman-Scharf ’85
Deborah Atkin Haggerty ’81
Deana Jones-Jean ’99
Louise Kennedy ’90
Nicole LaMotte ’88
Michelle M. Lee ’08
Claire Henry Lovell ’02
Daphne N. Muchnic ’74
Ana Ortiz ’03
Julie Esiro Oyogoa ’00
Anne Patterson ’78
Sarah Zisa Penndorf  ’99
NaSheena Porter Poznansky ’03
Rachel A. McGrath ’09
Letitia “Tish” Roberts ’60
Tianyi “Tina” Xu ’05

*Cicely Upham, Director of Alumnae and Parent Engagement, ex officio*

Join a long tradition of philanthropy at Miss Porter’s School

MPS PutnamCountySpellingBee 154
MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL

60 Main Street
Farmington, CT 06032
Phone: 860-409-3520
1-800-HI-SARAH option 2
FAX: 860-409-3521
alumnaerelations@missporters.org

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