Yeah, first we were going to endow a scholarship, but then we thought more about what my grandmother did and how many people at her funeral/wake were telling us about what an amazing worker she was and how she got along so well with her fellow administrative assistants and made the workplace better for them. (As the Dean's AA, she was sort of the top dog among AAs.)
So we said, "hey, could we do this thing instead?" and the response was phenomenal. It is not a big award, financially speaking, but we raised enough within the family to endow it for a while and my grandmother's former boss gave some money and other people donated too. The person does get a check, though, and a plaque, and some lilacs, since those were my grandmother's favorite flower.
And I got to go to lunch at the Harvard Club to kick things off, which was quite swank, and if I am in the area I get to go to the award presentation every year. One year I presented it and gave a little speech about my grandmother, so I joke about my "invited speaking engagement at Harvard" with the family.
It means so much to my grandfather, too. He goes every year and it is the highlight of his year to see so many people honoring his wife. My grandmother's former boss, the Dean emeritus, also went every year until his death.
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Date: 2013-07-17 10:13 pm (UTC)So we said, "hey, could we do this thing instead?" and the response was phenomenal. It is not a big award, financially speaking, but we raised enough within the family to endow it for a while and my grandmother's former boss gave some money and other people donated too. The person does get a check, though, and a plaque, and some lilacs, since those were my grandmother's favorite flower.
And I got to go to lunch at the Harvard Club to kick things off, which was quite swank, and if I am in the area I get to go to the award presentation every year. One year I presented it and gave a little speech about my grandmother, so I joke about my "invited speaking engagement at Harvard" with the family.
It means so much to my grandfather, too. He goes every year and it is the highlight of his year to see so many people honoring his wife. My grandmother's former boss, the Dean emeritus, also went every year until his death.