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Charles River School (CRS), an independent PreK – 8 school in Dover, announced today that it has raised an unprecedented $7.5 million in six months and has embarked on a capital campaign. Funds raised by the campaign will support the construction of a new middle school and grow the school’s endowment. The new building will provide students with increased space for mathematics and physical sciences to further support the school’s longstanding commitment to academic excellence.
CRS received the largest gift in the school’s history – $1.5 million – from Wellesley residents Nigel and Joanna Travis to kick-start the campaign. The Travis’s gift included an initial $1 million donation and a challenge to raise $7 million in six months, committing another $500,000 when CRS met that challenge. Nigel and Joanna have two children who attend the school.
“We’ve seen our children grow into confident, engaged, and intellectually-curious students at CRS. The personalized attention from the faculty, combined with the hands-on curriculum that is so unique to CRS, has instilled in them a true love of learning,” said Nigel Travis, Chairman and CEO of Dunkin’ Brands Group, Inc. “With Gretchen Larkin’s vision, the leadership team and world-class faculty, Joanna and I can think of no charitable investment more important than the school where our children are receiving their lifetime foundation for learning.”
“The education children receive at CRS is unparalleled,” added Joanna Travis, an attorney and Trustee of CRS. “I see the project-based work they’re doing now – studying the environment in the outdoor Wetlands Lab, building robots, or designing mathematically-proportional life-size sculptures – and am amazed at how early education has evolved. CRS students will be better served with the addition of this space, and we are thrilled to help bring to life this new middle school building to support their academic experience.”
“I am so grateful for the Travis’s transformative gift and the groundswell of support it has created. The extraordinary momentum and enthusiasm generated are testimony to the deep commitment to and love for our school,” said Head of School Gretchen Larkin. “I am astonished by this accomplishment and am proud to be part of the remarkable community that is CRS.”
“At CRS, we take great pride in our innovative curriculum, and our current middle school infrastructure no longer meets our programmatic needs,” Larkin continued. “The field of education has evolved at an incredible pace over the last decade; our faculty and students need learning spaces conducive to the project-based, collaborative learning that firmly places CRS at the vanguard of education.”
The middle school building will face Centre Street in Dover, across from Dover Town Hall, and enhance the town center with a beautiful façade and green space. It will add seventy percent more space for sciences and mathematics and fifty percent more space for world languages. The new building design will provide functional, flexible spaces for project and team-based learning as well as enhanced technological capabilities to better serve the CRS middle school program.
Construction for the building is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2017. For more information about Charles River School, visit www.charlesriverschool.org.
