TSF granted $800,000to289local students in June. This brings the total disbursement since 1960 to an incredible
$16.3 Million! TSF is proud to have aided over
12,780 students over the past 63 years.
2023 Merit Award Recipients
Hooray for our Merit Award Winners!
An impressive group of recent high school graduates earned distinction as TSF Merit Award winners. These awards include the Dan Blanchard History & Athletics Award, the Boston College Academic Achievement Award, the Rhudine Johnson Unsung Hero Award, and the Bill Spaulding Merit Award.
Coach Squires & Coach DiComandrea Cross Country & Track Scholarship
This fund honors two distinguished track coaches who went above and beyond to guide their teams and athletes. They instilled lifelong lessons of dedication, team spirit, and the importance of serving as a role model to younger teammates.
Coach Squires and Coach Deke, as he was affectionately known, were each involved in the sport of running for over 50 years.
Coach Squires was the first coach of the highly competitive Greater Boston Track Club. Among the marathon greats he trained was 4-time Boston winner Bill Rodgers. In 2022, he received the Bill Bowerman Award from the National Distance Running Hall of Fame and he is one of only 39 coaches inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Coach Deke led the Wakefield High School track teams from 1964 to 2011. He coached the boys’ team to the Middlesex League Cross Country Championship seven times in the eight years between 1977 and 1984 and the girls’ team captured the Middlesex League Cross Country Championship six times during the same years. Coach Deke's league meet record was 10 straight titles from 1964 to 1973.
TSF is honored to remember Coach Squires and Coach Deke through this fund.
Celebrating Outstanding Student Directors and Community Support
The Annual June Breakfast meeting is an opportunity to thank our student directors for their assistance during the school year as well as recognize our Community Recognition Award recipient for outstanding support of TSF.
The 2023 Community Recognition Award was presented to WCAT for terrific assistance in promoting our annual events, providing technical aid with hybrid meetings, and contributing audio-visual expertise for the 2023 Trivia Team Challenge.
This year's event also included appreciation and recognition of longtime TSF director Bob Eldridge for 41 years of service to the organization as a director, past president, and contributor to many events.
Every year we give to The Scholarship Foundation. Our young adult
children received much-needed funds during their college years and that help was amazing. Everyone should donate to TSF because
a student you know and love will benefit!
-TSF Recipient Parent
Spotlight on a Fund
While TSF’s mission is providing scholarship aid to local students, an equally important role we play is remembering and honoring many of our townspeople and local organizations. This is a role that is very meaningful to TSF. The stories behind each of our funds, including those of individuals who gave much to our town and those whose promise was not realized, are a key part of our success. To remember community members, both young and old, families, local groups and businesses in a positive and active way is a significant reason for our accomplishments since 1960 and our continued growth in aiding Wakefield students.
Spir-it, Inc. Fund
Spir-it, Inc. established TSF's sixth corporate fund in 1988. The history of this local company is one of the many fascinating stories behind a TSF fund.
In 1934, while enjoying a beverage with a friend, Jack Sidler was unable to reach the olive at the bottom of his glass. He came up with a novel idea. Instead of struggling to retrieve an olive or a cherry from a cocktail, how about piercing it with a small spear? And how about having it imprinted with the name of the establishment? And so, the "swizzle stick" was born.
After getting a patent, Sidler began selling wooden Spir-its, buying them pre-cut from lumber companies and then imprinting them with specialized machines. Early in the 1940s, Spir-it began manufacturing plastic stirrers in colors and with an increased variety of designs. Spir-it enjoyed a worldwide market and in 1968 sales exceeded one million dollars.
This local business, with offices on Lake and Foundry streets, supported TSF during many Phonathon fundraisers by providing the use of company telephones at their offices. Spir-it, Inc. closed its doors in 2000, but this fund remains as a tribute to an innovative Wakefield company.
