The Sewickley Academy Home and School Association (SAHSA) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Although it is a separate entity from Sewickley Academy, its sole purpose is to support the Academy. SAHSA’s Mission Statement: It is the mission of the Association to support the students, parents, and faculty of Sewickley Academy by supplementing the educational environment and enhancing the learning experiences of all students who attend Sewickley Academy, and to create a positive image of the school within the community.
SAHSA membership includes all parents, legal guardians, and other persons standing in “loco parentis” with a child or children attending Sewickley Academy, as well as all members of the faculty, staff, and administration of Sewickley Academy. Each family is asked to pay $50 in dues each school year, which raised over $16,000 during the 2019-2020 school year.
The Association’s dedicated volunteers made the 2019-2020 school year another success! The SAHSA Board Officers are a mix of 22 men and women, parents, and faculty who meet monthly and work throughout the year to ensure that we meet our mission. We also have countless other volunteers who help plan and organize our various events and fundraisers.
The annual Clothesline Sale (CLS) is the SAHSA’s largest fundraiser, and the CLS Committee worked tirelessly to make the 2019 sale a huge success, grossing just over $108,000. This was an increase from the previous year’s earnings of just under $100,000. This would not have been possible without numerous volunteers’ collaborative efforts, including current and past parents, faculty, students, and alumni.
While the bi-annual book fairs do not net cash, they provide scholastic dollars, which teachers can use to purchase items for their classrooms. Even though the Academy had to close its doors last spring and move to Virtual School due to the global pandemic, the Book Fair & Library Chair made sure the spring book fair was still available to students by providing a Virtual Book Fair. The fall and spring book fairs combined earned approximately $6,400 scholastics dollars.
The Logowear Chair provided multiple Logowear sales throughout the school year, which grossed just under $17,000, exceeding the previous year’s sales of over $12,000. One hundred percent of Logowear profits are allocated to the Above & Beyond budget.
The Above & Beyond (A&B) Committee receives and reviews grant requests from parents, students, faculty, staff, and administrators of the Sewickley Academy community. These requests aim to improve the school in the following areas: Productivity, Faculty Enrichment, Student Educational Enhancement, and Student Wellness and Community. The 2019-2020 A&B Committee granted just under $42,000 for items including, but not limited to the following: an outdoor ping pong table, picnic tables, a pottery kiln, lacrosse equipment, chairs and stools for flexible seating, a glass fusing kiln, a Latin certamen machine, and trout in the classroom.
Up to $10,000 was made available to the Head of School for Grants for Innovative Frameworks in Teaching (G.I.F.T.) by the SAHSA. G.I.F.T. is an initiative developed collaboratively with the Home and School Association and SA teachers and administrators to provide teachers with a mechanism that will allow them to capture unexpected opportunities for innovative, interdisciplinary projects, especially where collaboration and experiential learning are the focus and student learning goes above and beyond daily classroom practice and experience. The 2019-2020 G.I.F.T. grants included: Grades 5 and 6 visited The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and Senior School students received microphones and tripods for the “Documenting the World” class.
In addition to organizing fundraisers and granting funds to enhance the student experience at the Academy, the Association’s generous volunteers also help us recognize and support faculty and staff through a Back-to-School Luncheon and an Appreciation Luncheon in the spring, as well as provide holiday gifts. We also support SA through various special events, such as back-to-school nights, graduation dinners, school picture day, field day, and providing educational speakers. Our exceptional group of Lower School homeroom parents support our Lower School teachers and students by acting as a liaison between teachers and parents and coordinating and participating in classroom parties and events, in addition to chaperoning field trips.
Thank you to all of our 2019-2020 generous volunteers! Without you, all of this wouldn’t be possible!