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HomeNewsArchivesANTILLES SCHOOL CAMPAIGN REACHES $5 MILLION

ANTILLES SCHOOL CAMPAIGN REACHES $5 MILLION

November 17, 2001 – The Antilles School capital campaign has now topped $5 million.
At a celebration dinner last week at Coral World, school officials announced several substantial donations. The largest came from the campaign chairman, Neil Prior, and from Peter Gruber, head of Globalvest Management Co. and the Peter Gruber Foundation. Each committed $500,000 to the "Imagine the Possibilities" campaign.
Prior had previously established a $1 million charitable trust to go to the school upon his death. In giving the additional $500,000, he issued a challenge to others to match it.
Other donations acknowledged at the dinner included $50,000 from Ambassador Henry L. and Charlotte Kimelman to the Mark C. Marin Scholarship Fund. In making the donation, the Kimelmans lauded longtime headmaster Marin, who died in an accident last summer.
"By any measure, Mark's contributions have benefited both the Antilles and the St. Thomas communities," the ambassador wrote in a message for the celebration that he was unable to attend. "Building an endowment for scholarship assistance was near and dear to Mark's heart. One of his proudest accomplishments was making Antilles School accessible to students without financial means."
Chelsea Weintraub Higholt, a 1995 graduate of Antilles, also donated $50,000 to the campaign. In honor of her grandmother, Marion Rehill Weber, founder of the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel Association, she is funding a meditation garden along the pathway from the new Marin sports center to the main campus.
Prior announced eight other major contributions at the dinner: $25,000 each from John and Joan Amerling, Peter and Lisa Curreri and family, Dr. Alfred and Geraldine Heath, Trip and Boni Lea, MLC Management (VI) Inc., Bill and Fran Newbold and Ellen V.P. Wells, William Otto, and the Paint Depot and owner Michael Perron.
Antilles began a $6 million capital campaign in 1999, with the intention of building a new library, a sports facility, a theater and fine arts complex, an amphitheater and new classrooms, and to put aside $2 million for endowment.
It got a major boost earlier this year when Randy Knight of Knight Quality Stations kicked in $1 million for the sports complex, which is under construction and expected to open in January.
At the dinner, Gov. Charles Turnbull lauded Marin as a "Renaissance man" who "left a lasting legacy" with his dedication to the school and to the Virgin Islands community.

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