“My first year, I was involved in everything. And, the difference of being in a boarding situation and living in that setting was what helped tip the scale for me.”Ī Turrell Scholar at Blair, Anita ended up making a home on the hilltop and winning the Freshman of the Year Prize.
I remember that Blair felt friendly and warm and there were opportunities to study abroad and take different kinds of classes, which I was all really interested in. “It came down to two schools: Blair and a day school that I could have gone to. She found Blair, and she actually drove me and my grandmother to my interview and sat outside in the hallway with my grandmother.” “My middle school guidance counselor started looking for potential private schools when I was in the seventh grade. Thus, she trusted Anita’s middle school counselor, who wanted the high-achieving 12-year-old to enroll in a more rigorous institution. Lee knew that the rest of her granddaughter’s education, though, would have to come from school. She would drive wherever I was competing or performing while I was at Blair,” said Anita. “When I did go back home, and when I woke up the next morning, my clothes would be washed, dried and ready for me. Lee did her best to support, comfort and educate her granddaughter.
Some of Anita’s fondest memories of her grandmother occurred while she was a young student at Blair: From receiving gift packages to traveling home from Blair to find her favorite meal on the stove, Mrs. I was able to graduate from college with very little debt and was able to purchase a house.” That small act, which wasn’t small by any means, of supporting me from her Social Security payments, became how I succeeded in life. “And I guess that’s where it all ties together,” reflected Anita, “when we talk about paying it forward and generational wealth. That money, because I had no other support to go to college, became what I’d live off of, and that money actually became the funds I used for the down payment on my first house.” “She did that from the time my mother passed until it was time for me to go to college.
For the remainder, she would supplement from her own Social Security payments so that Anita’s mother’s funds could be saved.
Lee decided early on that she would only take $50 per month from that pool to raise her granddaughter. Knowing that Anita’s mother’s income was limited to Social Security, Mrs. As much as I was responsible for my success, my grandmother was right there with me, supporting me any way she could,” said Anita (Ricketts) Sarate ’88, who recently confirmed that her planned-giving gift to Blair would be in honor of her late grandmother, Lisher Lee.Īt the young age of 9, Anita’s mother passed, leaving the resilient, curious girl from East Orange, New Jersey, to be raised by her grandmother-an astute and shrewd guide dedicated to charting her granddaughter’s future. “Let me put it this way, my grandmother and I went to Blair.
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