"It is often hard to see how your donation makes an actual difference. We’ve been very impressed with what we’ve seen at Wye River Upper School and know the school is making a significant difference in the lives of their students. Chrissy has been great about keeping us informed."
--Frank Hermance, Donor, Chairman and CEO, Ametek, Inc.

For years my wife Cheri and I had been boating on the Chesapeake Bay. We loved the area and decided more recently to buy a second home on the Eastern Shore. After spending some time there we got to know a number of wonderful people from the local area and decided that we wanted to do some philanthropic work that would help the community.

As Chairman and CEO of Ametek, we contribute large sums of money to a variety of organizations, but it is often hard to see how those donations make an actual difference. Cheri and I wanted to find an organization that was geared toward children on the Eastern Shore, but we also wanted to know that our donation would make a direct impact. I contacted the Philadelphia Eagles Youth Partnership, one of Ametek’s contribution recipients, with our criteria and asked for assistance in locating appropriate organizations to donate to. They forwarded a website of non-profits and we started to investigate those on the Eastern Shore.

There were lots of different organizations to donate to, but we narrowed it down to a Little League group, because I am a baseball fan, and Wye River Upper School. We liked that the school was close to our home and that it involved children. But what really caught our eye was an article they had posted on their website about the story of how two struggling mothers, desperate to find a school for their teen-age boys who had learning differences, founded Wye River Upper School to solve their dilemma. It really moved us.

We decided to meet with Chrissy Aull, the Head of School and one of the founding mothers, and see if our initial impression was correct. We spent a couple of hours with her learning more about the school and quickly confirmed our initial impressions. We also discussed whether or not our gift could be specifically geared toward disadvantaged children who live on the Eastern Shore.

Once we were able to establish that our donation would be used in this way, we decided to make an even larger donation than we were originally planning to. Also, because Wye River Upper School is a non-profit with a mission to help educate children, I was able to secure a matching grant from Ametek. We could see that based on the gifts Wye River Upper School had already received, and the excellent impact the school was having on their students, our donation and the matching grant were going to really make a difference.

Cheri and I have been very impressed with what we’ve seen at Wye River Upper School. Chrissy has been great about keeping us informed. We have every reason to expect to learn of more stories of the impact we are privileged to have on the lives of the students of Wye River Upper School.