Foxcroft Academy receives $200,000 gift toward new humanities wing

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Foxcroft Academy has received a $200,000 naming gift from lifelong educator Mary Fittig, whose contribution has jump-started the Mary Kammerer Fittig Humanities Wing capital campaign.
    The wing, which is scheduled for construction this summer pending completion of the capital campaign, will add two state-of-the-art classrooms and connect the academy’s main academic building to its detached industrial and fine arts building, creating an interconnected academic complex and tightening campus security significantly. The new classrooms will be designed as 21st-century learning spaces, with an emphasis on student-centered learning, teacher collaboration, and technology integration.

    “This addition will help keep our students safe, reinforce a positive school climate, and equip us with a new set of tools in our ongoing quest to provide each and every student the best education possible,” said Head of School Arnold Shorey, who started at Foxcroft Academy in 2010. “I continue to be astonished by Mary’s generosity and her commitment to our students.”
    Mrs. Fittig’s contributions to Foxcroft Academy extend well beyond the humanities wing project. In the spring of 2013, she made a $500 gift to the Annual Fund and also founded both the H.G. Fittig and Mary Kammerer Fittig Scholarship Fund and the H.G. Fittig and Mary Kammerer Fittig Technical and Trade School Scholarship Fund. She has now contributed a total of $8,000 to the funds, which give special preference to graduating seniors who wish to pursue a career in early childhood education or attend a technical and trade school.
    The following spring she helped turn FA’s electronic sign capital campaign into a reality by making gifts of $20,000 and $4,000 to secure the naming rights for both the Mary Kammerer Fittig Sign and the Gerard & Ada Kammerer Memorial Garden.
    “We are incredibly grateful for all that Mary has done and are proud to count her amongst our greatest benefactors,” said Shorey.
    Mrs. Fittig spent 29 years as an elementary school teacher, primarily in the inner city of New York, where she specialized in literacy, enriching the lives of countless disadvantaged youth. She discovered Foxcroft Academy while spending her summers in Greenville, where she befriended many former students and enjoyed hearing about their time in Dover-Foxcroft.
    “I was impressed with the mission of Foxcroft Academy, and I hope my donation will inspire others to financially support the Academy,” said Mrs. Fittig. “I don’t feel that this is philanthropy–I see it as an investment in humankind.”
    Foxcroft Academy was established as a private secondary school on January 30, 1823.