It would be nice if this could happen EVERY week, but even I know that is not possible.

On Tuesday afternoon I signed an agreement on behalf of the school with The Levant Foundation under which Awty will receive  $4.3 million over the next few years in support of our capital campaign to raise funds for buildings.  Immediately following the signing, we were honored to accept a gift of $1.8 million as the first component of this generous donation.

As everyone in the Awty community knows (I hope), we have an ambitious four-phase building program underway which will

transform our campus into a state-of-the-art facility to serve the needs of our ultimate projected enrollment of 1550 students (we have just over 1300 students at the moment).

Phase 1 of the Master Plan is well underway.  This is a three-story, 65000 square foot facility which will house 33 general learning areas, two art classrooms, one digital photo room, a new dining hall for the entire student body,

new administrative offices, and additional meeting rooms.  As you can see in the photos here, this new building is well on schedule for completion in May this year, and we expect to begin using it from the beginning of the new school year in August.

Phase 2 of the Master Plan will commence next month when preparations begin for the construction of a new multi-level 450-space parking garage over summer.  Like the

Phase 1 building, we expect the parking garage to be ready for use from August this year.

However, Phase 2 also includes construction of new learning facilities to expand the Primary School and a new Pre-School building.  We are hoping to raise enough funds by June this year to commence construction of the Primary School extension

(shown in the plan drawing below and sketches here) during summer in the hope that we can start using the facility from January 2013.  This is an ambitious timeline, and we still need an additional $3 million, but the generous gift from the Levant Foundation has certainly provided us with some very significant momentum.

The final phases of our master plan will include new green space, a Student Center, and ultimately a Fine Arts Center.

I am excited that our partnership with The Levant Foundation is flourishing in this way.  The Levant Foundation has a long-standing commitment to cooperating with universities, institutions of fine art, as well as religious and research institutions to sponsor and fund artistic,

academic, and educational programs.  It has made numerous major gifts in support of our prior capital campaigns at Awty, and it has been a major supporter of the school’s Annual Fund, the yearly fundraising gala, and various athletic programs.

It is great to know that future generations of students at Awty will benefit from the efforts that we are all making today with a number of wonderful partners such as The Levant Foundation.  As I often say - the future of our society is in the corridors and classrooms of schools today.  The combination of The Levant Foundation’s gift and our visionary building program at Awty should ensure that these corridors and classrooms provide the best possible learning environments for those future generations.

As an educator, I believe that it is vitally important that we take up the challenge do this well - the quality of tomorrow’s international environment that The Awty International School exists to create and which it is striving to enhance depends on it!