Project Graduation’s Trivia Night raised spirits and funds (Letter to the editor)

Trivia Night raised spirits and funds on April 1 at the Montclair Women’s Club, a Project Graduation event organized by a dedicated group of parents.

Project Graduation, now in its 33rd year, set out in the midst of slowly relaxing coronavirus restrictions on a year-long endeavor to raise funds to celebrate the graduating class of approximately 524 Montclair High School students with a much-loved tradition of a culminating secret event, having toured the town on multiple yellow school buses shortly after the graduation ceremony. 

Trivia Night was one of the many fun and enjoyable community events hosted by Project Graduation, attended by many parents from the school community. We were honored to have an opening act from The Montclair High School group Passing Notes, who thrilled the audience with their a capella performance of several songs. We wish to thank our community at large and our guests at Trivia Night for your continuing support. 

We are truly appreciative of our lead sponsors, Montclair Orthodontics and West of Hudson Real Estate, helping to make graduation special, and of many of our wonderful small businesses in Montclair that contributed to our raffle baskets and silent auction. Thank you also to our supporting sponsors: Coldwell Banker Realty Montclair, Cornerstone Montclair, Fleet Feet Montclair, Montclair Radiology, SDA Clifton Indoor Sports Facility, Amanti Vino, IFundWomen, Kennedy Counseling and Murnick Financial Group. Having such a supportive community all made this night possible and resulted in a hugely successful fundraising event for our Class of 2022.

In truth, it demonstrates that it truly takes a village to reach our goals. A big thank you to our Trivia Night team for all the thoughtful planning and work over the past three months to make the evening such a huge success: Jessica Henry, Jaime Duffy, Kathleen Fitzgerald, Adee Shepen, Jodi Kaplan, Betsey Richards, Jennifer Friedberg, Nikki Mammano, Lisa Wigdor, Kim Williams and Stacey Pinilis.

Our dedicated, small teams of volunteers continue to organize events so we can raise the funds to sponsor an evening with a substance-free, adult-supervised party for Montclair High School graduating seniors where they can celebrate their accomplishments with classmates in a safe and sober location. We welcome volunteers from all grades at MHS to support us through a number of events over the next couple of months. You can find out more about these  and contribute by visiting our site, mhsprojectgraduationinc.square.site, we work toward our goal so all students wishing to participate can enjoy it. 

Ann Bismal, Shuba Vasan, Gay Kasegrande, Elizabeth Esteves, Cathi Flanagan
Montclair Project Graduation Inc.

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