Mediterranean dinner will help take Academy students abroad

Home City News Mediterranean dinner will help take Academy students abroad
Mediterranean dinner will help take Academy students abroad
Informational flyer for Mediterranean Dinner hosted by the Academy.

Taste the Mediterranean this Saturday and help support a trip to Italy and Greece.

Hillsdale Academy will host their annual Mediterranean Feast fundraiser on Saturday to help support its junior and senior classes’ trip to Italy and Greece. Dinner will be served from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. with a silent auction to follow, sponsored by “Woman’s Life” which matches auction proceeds up to $500. Tickets to the event are free for children under 5, $5 for college students and children 6-11, and $7 for ages 12 and up. The Mediterranean inspired food will be donated by the owner of Johnny T’s Bistro, Rick Tropiano.

Although the trip to Europe is biannual, the Academy raises money year-round to help alleviate their student’s cost, and this event is their largest fundraiser.

Dedra Birzer, lecturer of history at Hillsdale College and one of the coordinators of the Mediterranean Feast, said they’re expecting as many as 300 people. She said their goal in fundraising is to raise $1,000 per kid, to help lower the cost from $3,900. Thirty junior and seniors going on their trip in the end of March.

“People are already stretching to make sure they can pay for their kids to attend the academy, we want to make sure we can lower the cost for every kid,” Kenneth Calvert, associate professor of ancient history at Hillsdale College and former headmaster of Hillsdale Academy said.

Calvert has attended the trip since 2003, but this year he’ll serve in a different capacity.

“I had always gone as the headmaster,” Calvert said, “but this year I get to go as a dad.”

Calvert also said that when he was headmaster he had a saying: “Nobody goes unless everybody can go.”

Calvert said that the trip to Europe is mandatory and the academy works hard to make sure they can get every kid to go because it’s a sort of capstone to their classical, history, literary, and religious education.

“I’m convinced of the trip,” Birzer said. “It’s a culmination of the academy’s education.”

The current Headmaster David Diener said that the trip exposes the students to the birthplaces of western civilization.

All are welcome to attend the dinner Saturday night.

“The Mediterranean Feast on Saturday is our students’ primary fundraiser for this trip,” Diener said in an email. “They work hard to help pay their way, and the fundraiser is in large part what makes this exceptional educational trip possible for our students.”