OVERVIEW: For many Poly Prep alumni, our high school was a place where the world opened up and showed us its possibilities. Our teachers and coaches taught us to reach beyond our collective grasp so that our dreams could come true. Unfortunately, at Poly Prep, a dark undercurrent poisoned these formative years for many of our peers. For a quarter of a century, a serial pedophile preyed upon dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent boys and wreaked almost unimaginable havoc and pain in their lives. In 2008, this Foundation was formed to help numerous individuals who have suffered abuse but now seek to shed the cloak of "victim." Through the Foundation, they will have the opportunity to heal others, as well as themselves. FOUNDATIONS GOALS: 1. Identify Abused Alumni: Provide a safe haven for abused alumni to come forward and share their stories; offer anonymity to those seeking help; form peer support groups; provide counseling referrals (through the Foundation or partnering independent agencies); provide outreach to potentially abused alumni through a confidential referral process. 2. Reconciliation: Address abused alumni's feelings of abandonment and reunite them with the Poly Prep community (faculty, administrators and fellow alumni); solicit Poly Prep for cooperation and collaboration in facilitating the healing and reconciliation process. 3. Education and Prevention: Establish educational programs at Poly Prep and elsewhere through seminars, workshops and publications to educate students on the detection and prevention of abuse risks and the reporting of sexual and other kinds of abuse; provide guidance, resources and referrals to students; organize independent seminars, workshops and publications for alumni, their families, and the general public, with respect to sexual abuse issues. 4. Financial Support: Provide an ongoing mechanism to fund the multitude of support services and activities to be provided by the Foundation; establish an endowment to provide financial assistance to abused alumni who suffered severe emotional and physical trauma though the years (the Foundation will verify the legitimacy of all financial hardship claims to ensure the equitable distribution of compensation); engage in active, aggressive and ongoing fund-raising through grant solicitations from public and private entities, solicit funds from friends and other individuals supportive of the goals of the Foundation; develop self-sustaining sources of income through Foundation activities (publications, seminars, workshops) that can be offered to like-minded groups. © 2012 White Tower Healing Foundation, Inc.