Alumnae Help Establish Chaffee Scholarship Fund with Planned Gifts

The school is pleased to announce the establishment of the Chaffee Scholarship Fund, thanks to a gift from an anonymous Chaffee alumna, a bequest from Gay Hartnett Leffel ’55, and a realized charitable remainder trust (CRT) from Mims Brooks Butterworth ’36. This endowed fund “honors the legacy, intellectual rigor, and spirit of The Chaffee School, which opened its doors in 1927 before joining with The Loomis School in 1970 and becoming The Loomis-Chaffee School in 1972. It is to be awarded to a deserving girl, with preference for a day student, whose family qualifies for need-based financial aid.”

The school is grateful for the generosity of all three donors and for Gay and Mims’ forethought to establish planned gifts in order to benefit the school. A day student from Windsor, Connecticut, Gay played on her school's sports teams, performed in plays, and loved singing and dancing. Gay’s brother graduated from Loomis, her sister graduated from Chaffee, and three of her nephews graduated from Loomis Chaffee.

Mims was also a day student from Windsor. She was a historian, educator, author, and activist who worked as a history teacher at Chaffee in the 1960s, was a member of West Hartford’s Town Council in the 1980s, and also served as a trustee of Loomis Chaffee in the 1980s. Her brother, two nephews, two sons, and a daughter attended Loomis and Chaffee respectively.

Over the years, both Gay and Mims attended many Reunions as well as numerous Loomis Chaffee events. In the spring of 2018, Mims celebrated her 100th birthday at a Chaffee Book Club.

For more information about how you can join Gay and Mims by becoming members of the JMT Society, please contact Associate Director of Development for Gift Planning Heidi E. V. McCann ’93 at 860.687.6273 or Heidi_McCann@loomis.org.