June 2008

Dear friends of Waldorf Education,

Apple Blossom School is approaching the end of its fourth year.  We are very happy in our home in Cannondale (Wilton, Connecticut). Our community has done so much to build our beautiful little school. We are thankful for the children and parents who come together to learn and grow at Apple Blossom. Apple Blossom is a non-profit school whose mission is "to further Waldorf Education".

Apple Blossom School Mission Statement

Our Mission is to further Waldorf Education by building a Waldorf center for family support and early childhood education. Through creating parenting workshops, cultivating festival life, and holding early childhood classes, we will work to support mothers-to-be, new families and young children (birth to seven). The family center will prepare each child for his or her future development. We will receive the children in warmth, rhythm and reverence. The early childhood classes will support the development of the child's physical body and the child's will by teaching through example. We will actively work on our own inner growth in an effort to be worthy of imitation.

Family Center Workshop Mission

The Apple Blossom Family Center holds workshops, lectures and classes for adults or families of our school and the greater community. Our programs will strive to uphold and encourage basic tenets of Waldorf Education, including compatible family-oriented topics. Our goal is to provide a compassionate, caring arena where the family and the young child may be nourished and supported within our healthy and holistic community.

All current Apple Blossom families are members of Apple Blossom. Of these families we ask that you consider increasing your membership donation, or ask for matching donation money from the company you work for. Our hope is that all those who have once been members of Apple Blossom and those whose families have been touched by Apple Blossom will continue your membership now, and in the years to come.

To those who our mission resonates with, we ask that you join Apple Blossom as a member or renew your membership in order to support our short and long-term goals as outlined below. Please help us with fundraising by sending this letter along with a membership form to family, friends, and business acquaintances that you think might want to support Apple Blossom and Waldorf education. Additional membership forms can be downloaded from our website or you can ask the office at 203-834-0344 to mail the forms that you need.

Short and long-term goals

The seed of our family center is our workshop mission. Our goal in the next 3-5 years is to broaden it and develop it further into a more comprehensive vision. Therefore, the Family center will become a larger aspect of the school organism and will thereby create a part-time position. It is our long-term (10-year) goal to have established the family center. The part-time role will grow into a full-time position of coordinating and upholding the family center mission and administration as well as that of the school.

Within 3-5 years we hope to further develop our public fundraising in order to improve and expand the school's income thereby supporting the programs and faculty needed to maintain them. We want to work on Apple blossom's ability to retain qualified faculty through improving our finances and re-establishing current positions and creating new roles. By means of this public fundraising endeavor, we also hope to establish an endowment towards tuition assistance, within the next ten years. Our current lease expires in 2011, after three more school years. Therefore it is our goal to evaluate our growing needs in terms of space and determine if we should continue to rent this space, look for a new space to rent, or buy a property.

A Community Membership form is herewith enclosed. Please submit it along with your tax deductible membership contribution to:

The Apple Blossom School and Family Center
440 Danbury Road
Wilton, Ct.  06897

We hope that you will stop by to say hello and have a peek at our school and shop in our school store.  Please call 203-834-0344 prior to your arrival so that we can welcome you properly.

Thank you for your support of Waldorf education.

Jessica Khoshabo
Erika Loker
Marcia Marquis

     
             
             

The Apple Blossom School and Family Center seeks a representative community of diversity, welcoming students of any race, religion, ethnic and economic background. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in the administration of its educational or admissions programs and policies.