EE Ford Grant

The matching grant awarded to Winchester Thurston School will catalyze the community to raise a total of $500,000 in support of the project and endowed funds for the CAOC program. This financial backing will ensure the sustainability and expansion of the program, enabling it to reach more students and create a lasting legacy of robust educational experiences.

Since its establishment in 1887, Winchester Thurston School has a history of progressive academic approaches, fostering an open, accessible, welcoming culture, while upholding exemplary standards of scholarship. The school’s hallmark program, City as Our Campus℠, seamlessly integrates curriculum with the rich historical and cultural fabric of our region, demonstrating WT’s commitment to innovation and community impact. 

City as Our Campus℠ is an extension of the school’s core academic curriculum and augments it by providing students with meaningful, real-world experiences. Through collaboration with diverse partners throughout the Pittsburgh community, students gain insights into the region’s most pressing issues and actively work toward solving them.

Building on robust existing partnerships between educators at Winchester Thurston School and other Pittsburgh area schools, the EE Ford Foundation Grant will contribute to the creation and execution of a unique summer out-of-school-time experience rooted in the CAOC program. This expansion will provide students from both WT and public schools in the Pittsburgh region access to transformative learning experiences beyond the typical school year and traditional classroom.

"This grant represents a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to innovative education and community engagement," said Dr. Scott Fech, Head of School at Winchester Thurston. "We are honored to be recognized by the EE Ford Foundation for the second time, and we are eager to build on the success of our City as Our Campus program to create an even more profound impact on our city and its young people."

The EE Ford Foundation has been a key partner in shaping the City as Our Campus curriculum since 2004, providing multiple grants that have played a pivotal role in the program's evolution. Previous grants include the initial funding in 2004 to establish City as Our Campus, a leadership grant in 2009 to transform CAOC in WT’s Upper School, and a 2017 grant to create the CoLearn initiative, enabling WT to share insights about CAOC with educators in independent schools nationwide.

“I am so very pleased for you and for Winchester Thurston. Yours was a strong and impressive

presentation that certainly helped the Board see how this program holds such promise, not just for your school but for others as well,” wrote John C. Gulla Executive Director of the EE Ford Foundation. 

"For nearly 20 years, the partnership between the E.E. Ford Foundation and Winchester Thurston School has broken barriers in K-12 Independent School education," explained Alex Neal, Director of Philanthropy at Winchester Thurston School. "Catalyzed and further defined by generous challenge grants from the E.E. Ford Foundation, City as Our Campus has proven integral to not only the curricular successes at WT but, because of the learning-sharing we were able to provide in two national CoLearn Conferences, it is now present in curriculum throughout the Independent School community."

The EE Ford Grant will propel Winchester Thurston School to new heights in community engagement and educational innovation, continuing to make a lasting impact on students across the Pittsburgh region.

Learn more about Winchester Thurston’s City as Our Campus program. 
Learn more about EE Ford Foundation.