For Doug and Dorsey Miller, Park is more than a school; it’s a community that has shaped their family’s experience in lasting ways. In a conversation with Associate Director of Development Lauren Corvese, they reflect on what they love most about Park and what inspired their support of Phase III of The SPARK Campaign.
What do you love most about Park?
Park has provided our children and our family as a whole with a truly wonderful community. Our children deeply value their relationships with both their teachers and their friends. Our daughter often makes morning visits to some of her former teachers just to give them a hug, which speaks volumes about the warmth and strength of those connections.
One of the things we appreciate most about Park is its commitment to a well-rounded education. Our children are encouraged to pursue their interests in the arts just as fully as their interests in athletics, and the exploration of different passions is genuinely valued. Also, our children have very different personalities and learning styles, and it has been wonderful to see how thoughtfully Park supports each of them as individuals. While at Park, we have seen them develop into independent, diligent students and articulate and kind communicators. They genuinely love to go to school everyday.
But the bottom line is, we are simply very appreciative of the foundation Park has given our children and are happy to give back to a community that has given us so much.
Your family has been deeply involved in the Park community over the years. Philanthropy and service are clearly important to you. How do these commitments reflect your family’s values, and what guides your approach to giving?
We love giving back to a community that gives so much to our children. Getting to know fellow parents, teachers, administrators, and staff has been a real pleasure and deepened our appreciation for the School. Volunteering has also given us the opportunity to connect with some of the people who make the daily experience at Park possible, people we might not otherwise cross paths with, like Chef Marco and Director of Facilities Joe Lepore. They are such an important part of the community and truly wonderful people.
We feel extremely grateful to be able to provide our children with such an amazing education and foundation for success in their lives and feel it’s our duty to give back to the best of our abilities. We understand how much time, thought, cost, and hard work goes into this experience and that the independent school budget is inherently tight. We believe in supporting Park’s capital initiatives in order to help the school maintain top-notch facilities and attract talented faculty and staff, as well as provide this amazing education to other families down the line.
As a family with both Upper and Lower Division students, what changes have you already seen through The SPARK Campaign that have enhanced your children’s experiences?
We have directly benefitted from the new Academic Support Wing. We are very grateful that this has been expanded and relocated to a more central location within the School, which represents the importance Park places on these services for its students. We are amazed by the thoughtful and tasteful renovations of the Main and West Buildings, including the new science labs, Makerspace, and Upper Division collaboration spaces. The new turf field is also incredible.
Is there a project or aspect of Phase III that is most exciting to you? Why?
We are excited by the rethinking of the outdoor space and potential new uses for Park’s wooded areas. It sounds like there are magical possibilities that every student could enjoy. We are also very excited by the redirecting of traffic and improvement of flow of the campus overall, especially during carpool. Although our kids take the bus, we hope this will get them to and from school sooner. 🙂
Park’s culture of philanthropy is rooted in community and collective impact, and we hope every family will participate in a personally meaningful way. If you were encouraging a friend to support SPARK, what would you say to them?
We would say that our children have already benefitted greatly from past generosity to The SPARK Campaign, so paying it forward to the next generation of families feels like the right thing to do. As we approach the role of senior members of the community, we feel as though setting the example of philanthropy is incredibly important to the health of the School. But the bottom line is, we are simply very appreciative of the foundation Park has given our children and are happy to give back to a community that has given us so much.