A message from David Toyne -

Recently Nattalie Smith and I met with Marcia Pate, Head of the UCC Horizon's Program for 2007-2009. Ms. Pate is a committed educational professional who has been seconded from the Toronto District School Board for her 3 year Horizons assignment at UCC. She is an experienced teacher and former Assistant Principal at one of Toronto's "inner city" schools, Nelson Mandela Public School.

The Horizon's program is a UCC creation of which we should be very proud.

Former Board of Governor's Chair, Kelly Meighan started the program with a significant grant and an aspirational goal of bringing all that UCC has to offer in terms of academic, athletic, music and modern media to well deserving public school kids. Today Horizons serves over 300 children across 8 public schools in the Toronto area and has expanded to include a summer program for the "academically motivated" and a grad program to ensure that Horizons experienced students continue to receive support as they navigate secondary school levels.

Horizons is a very important reflection of the UCC community's commitment to excellence in education, character development and outreach to our broader society in order to support our goal to make UCC an excellent educator, not an exclusive one. It directly supports the third of five initiatives in the School's Strategic Plan.

The Strategic Plan will focus on five key areas:

• Broaden the range of "big school" opportunities and challenges
• Promote a "small school" culture where every boy is known, in part through the creation of smaller units of students and faculty
• Significantly improve accessibility to UCC for outstanding students who would not otherwise be able to attend the school
• Focus on the development of character and emotional intelligence in our students; and
• Transform the boarding program into an exceptional, focused program that will better meet the needs of outstanding boys drawn from across Canada and around the world.

Horizon's also provides an opportunity for children attending UCC to get engaged in assisting younger boys and girls from Horizon's participating schools. My 15 year old son, Dylan, for example has been a Horizon student volunteer for the past two year's and has been coaching lacrosse to a child with autism - WOW - what an amazing opportunity to learn about and from others whom you might not regularly come into contact with at UCC. 

So - where is all this leading?

A small group of your classmates, under the direction and leadership of our Class President Harold Murphy, has met several times over the late spring and summer to organize the Reunion weekend. At one of those meetings we discussed our class gift. Harold subsequent asked me to research and lead an effort to see about focusing our fund raising on the Horizon's program as it seemed to meet with general acceptance around the room.

I am pleased to report that, based upon my review and discussion with Ms. Pate, a Class of '78 gift to support the attendance at UCC by a child identified through the Horizon's Program would be an amazing contribution from our class. It would become the basis for an admissions process involving the UCC Admissions team, the Horizons leadership, and a number of partner schools who would provide a list of 4-5 selected boys (all of whom and their families would want to attend UCC) to be interviewed with one, initially, selected to attend UCC starting in grade 9.

Our funds would be used to create a "Horizon's Tuition Assistance Bursary" which would be supported by the Foundation's general bursaries to wholly fund the tuition and related costs for the selected student to attend UCC.

This will be the first significant investment in Horizons above and beyond Ms. Meighan's original leadership gift and represent a really meaningful way for us to give a very deserving, but financially challenged boy the chance to experience all the wonderful benefits of a modern UCC education.