There are many ways to give, and in her time with the College, Wanda Ho has provided an example of most of them. She’s been on the board of governors, served as a member of the foundation board of trustees, and was president of the Parents’ Guild. She ran Guild events and was instrumental in building momentum behind major campaigns. She bought auction items and Gala tickets. She supported capital campaigns, both financially and with her time and expertise. “I did everything except the uniform sale,” she says with a chuckle. “My husband always said, ‘You just can’t stay out of it—you have to know what’s going on.’”

She hasn’t, and she does. Having been involved with the school since 2002, her institutional knowledge is vast. The one thing she hadn't done, until now, is make a planned gift. For her, it may be the most meaningful of all. A planned or legacy gift looks ahead—a contribution, by its very nature, to the future of the school. But it also invites reflection. As we talk, she recalls some of the motivations behind her very first moment with the school, the decision to enroll her son, Kjell Pladsen ‘12, in Grade 3. As a parent volunteer at St. Clement’s, she drove members of the golf team to their practices. “The girls talk in the car as if you weren’t there,” she says. “They just gab away. And there was one conversation where they were talking about boys. And one of them said, ‘You know, I only date boys from St. George’s because they’re the good guys.’”

Of course there were other factors in the decision to enroll Kjell, but that moment resonated. “I’m a true believer that education is not job preparation. Academics, that’s important, but it’s not nearly as important as what kind of a man you become.” She adds that, “this is a very special and unique place. You don’t need everybody to be leaders, but you want everyone to be a good human being. This school creates, with very few exceptions, very good human beings.”

She knows from experience that that’s not something that happens in grand gestures, but rather in a thousand little, subtle moments. She tells a story about how, in his first year, Kjell struggled with athletics (something that will surprise anyone who knows him today). “The boys were all playing, starting to play soccer. And, you know, he couldn’t run. One of the teachers said, ‘Just walk with us to the park—they had to play over at the other side of Bathurst. Just come with us. You don’t have to play. You don’t have to do anything. Just come and join in.’”

He did the first week, and the next, and he kept going. “He never played on the team,” she says, “but he went to every single practice.” When she talks about RSGC being unique, that’s one of the things she’s thinking about: belonging comes first. (Manners are a close second. “We're sitting down for dinner, somebody walks in, and he stands up! And, you know, I didn't teach him that.”)

Again, while Wanda has given in many ways over the course of decades, she notes that her decision to make a legacy gift feels different. For one, it expresses a different message. “It reminds my children how important this is,” she says. In a way, it’s also a message to the teachers. “I will always be grateful for what they did and, you know, I want to remember them in this fashion.” She thinks of the soccer practices, the events, and the people she’s met along the way. She thinks of the quality of the friendships her son has made, remembering with a smile the “five or six giant pairs of sneakers in my hallway” after the end of a school day. She’s proud that those relationships remain as close today as they were when they graduated, now more than a decade ago.

In particular, she feels her gift recognises that RSGC is not one of many, but one of one. “I would like this school to be here forever and ever,” she says. “The selfish part is, hopefully, my grandson will go here. I want him to be able to have a school like this…. What you gather here, apart from academics, is how to treat people, how to be loyal, how to be helpful, how to be compassionate.” The non-selfish part, in her words, is to help bring that experience to as many boys as she can. “You know, this school did so much for my son. Let me do something for the future.”

And she has.

—