Penny Townsend, head of school, has announced a gift of $2 million to The Pennington School from the grandparents of 10 Pennington alumni.
With this donation, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Wesley Sr. of Newtown, Pa., through the Joseph and Marion Wesley Family Foundation, have bestowed the second largest gift ever given to the school by one family, and the largest gift ever given by grandparents.
All 10of the Wesleys’ grandchildren have attended The Pennington School.
As part of the school’s 175th anniversary capital campaign, this contribution will support two building projects that will both be completed for the 2014–15 academic year. The first project is the creation of the Wesley Alumni House, which will be the center of alumni activities on campus and will contain the offices of alumni and development. This building will be the result of the relocation and renovation of historic Lowellden, formerly the school’s office of admission. The restoration and reconstruction of this building, once the home of past headmaster Francis Harvey Green, will preserve the historic integrity of the school’s campus and the larger Pennington community.
The second project underwritten by this gift is the central gathering space to be found within the new Kenneth K.T. Yen Humanities Building. The forum will be a unique, multistory space flooded with sunlight, specifically designed for cross-disciplinary collaboration within the field of humanities and offering a gathering space for large assemblies, meeting and special presentations. It will be named the Joseph L. and Marion M. Wesley Forum.
Joseph L. Wesley Sr. is the founder of the AmQuip Corporation, “The Crane People,†now known as AmQuip Crane Rental LLC, a leading provider of crane rental equipment and related services in the United States, where Mr. Wesley continues to remain active as a member of its Board of Managers.
The Pennington School, founded in 1838, is an independent coeducational school for students in grades 6 through 12, in both day and boarding programs.
