IYRS supporters raise record amount at School’s Annual Summer Gala

by Melissa Flaherty on 17 Jul 2014 On the evening of Saturday, July 12, 650 supporters gathered for the IYRS Annual Summer Gala, sponsored for a second consecutive year by Fidelity Investments and Prestige Jaguar. Gala-goers enjoyed cocktails and dinner by MAX Ultimate Food of Boston, and a live performance by Lyle Lovett and His Band. Lyle tweeted, 'Thank you for having the band and me. We had a great time with you all.' Generous sponsorship support, table sales, a live and a collector’s auction, and a reverse auction that raised over $200,000 alone, put the school in record territory for their annual fund-raiser. All totaled, IYRS raised just over $1mm gross—up by about $100,000 from last year.

'IYRS is building support as it experiences growing enrollment and continued extraordinary student outcomes,' said IYRS President Terry Nathan. 'More than 90 percent of our graduates were employed on or about the time they completed their programs this past year. At a time when conversation in America is about training more people to make and build things, an IYRS education is preparing people for life-long careers of working and thinking through their hands and through the use of technology. It is a compelling and important story.'

IYRS Trustees Ron O’Hanley and Tesa Van Munching served as 2014 Gala co-chairs to help orchestrate a successful evening on behalf of the school, 'We each have our reasons for supporting IYRS. For us, we do so because IYRS is achieving remarkable results. Students are well-educated and launched into good careers. Important local industries are being supported and renewed with IYRS graduates.'

The evening included a Tuscan-style sit-down dinner. Senior Auctioneer C. Hugh Hildesley of Sotheby’s—who has conducted some of the auction house’s most prestigious sales, including those of the Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Collection of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor—conducted the live auction. The top-earning auction item of the evening was a miniature model of Young America by Donald McNarry. Other live-auction items included a fully restored 1957 VW Beetle Coup, a stay in a WIMCO oceanside villa in St. Barth’s during the St. Barth’s Bucket regatta, and an extraordinary diamond encrusted cuff bracelet from Pomellato. Gala guests were also enthusiastic donors in a reverse auction for equipment, tools and technology, ensuring that students continue to have access to the state-of-the art equipment that is critical to their IYRS learning experience. The rare Abeking and Rasmussen Beetle Cat raffle was won by Rebecca Allen. Ms. Allen was inspired to enter the raffle by her father – he grew up sailing a Beetle Cat he won through a lottery, appropriately named Windfall.

IYRS School of Technology and Trades is a world-class experiential learning school with an education model dedicated to teaching highly technical and deeply craft-oriented career skills. The school’s legacy is born out of a mission to preserve the craft of making, building and restoring in the marine trades. Currently, IYRS has three accredited programs and regularly collaborates with post-secondary schools of architecture, preservation, industrial design and engineering through short-term classes, including recently with MIT, Harvard, RISD, Roger Williams and others. The skills acquired in IYRS’ programs are applicable across a broad range of industries and with a wide range of materials from traditional wood to modern composites.

For more information, visit IYRS