The Sam and Grace Masoudi Memorial Fund


  • SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, May 20 from 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., Challenge Foundation Walk in memory of Sam & Grace Masoudi

           

SAVE THE DATE:  Mark your calendars for Sunday May 20, 2012.   Join us for the Sam and Grace Masoudi Memorial Fund Walk benefitting the St. Anne's Challenge Foundation Scholars. The walk will take place at Bible Park at 10:00 a.m.   It's a great family event and a chance to show your support for an awesome fund with a great cause.  We hope to see you there!  

(Registration form)

Sam (age 12) and Grace (age 8) Masoudi died August 4, 2008 when a single engine plane crashed into a Gearhart, Oregon home where they were on vacation. Their adored cousin, Julia Reimann (age 10) also died, and their Aunt Ruth and cousin Sarah Reimann were very seriously injured. Their parents, Fred Masoudi and Marie Johnson, and their older sister Liz (class of ’08), were staying in a nearby home with extended family at the time of the accident.

 


Sam and Grace led glorious lives.  Sam was a boy of great character, known for a gentle and kind spirit, love of books and Greek mythology, Legos, golf, Tae Kwon Do, playing the Entertainer on the piano, exotic foods, and his Chihuahua Odette.  Grace was a radiant girl with a winning smile who loved her family, many friends, to put her hair in a ballet bun, the Poppleton and Fancy Nancy books, glamorous and sparkling pink clothes, “underdoggies” on the swingset, and a card game called Pounce.  A memorial service was held on a perfectly sunny morning in the sunken garden at St. Anne’s and their lives were shared with a large gathering of friends and family [remembrance & blog]. 


St. Anne’s was always part of their lives, a home away from home.  They were frequent visitors beginning in 1998, when their sister Liz started preschool.  Sam began preschool in 2000, and Grace in 2004.  Their lives at the school were replete with friendship, close and loving connections with teachers, the daily life in the beautiful gardens, and intellectual, moral, physical and spiritual development. 


The Sam and Grace Masoudi Memorial Fund will carry their memory into the future by partnering with the local Challenge Foundation [www.thechallengefoundation.org] to make St. Anne’s available to six talented, but financially disadvantaged middle school students.  Beginning in the fall of 2009, the memorial fund will provide tuition for two sixth graders joining the St. Anne’s community from the Challenge Foundation.  The Challenge Foundation carefully selects capable, intelligent, motivated students who could not afford private school.  They provide mentoring, summer programs, tutoring and case management.  They have a proven track record that benefits both individual students receiving these scholarships as well as the school communities that have welcomed them.  Challenge students at St. Anne’s will go on to Regis High School after graduation and receive ongoing support from the Foundation through high school and college.   Each year, two additional sixth graders will join St. Anne’s so that by 2011, six Challenge students will be receiving tuition support from the Sam and Grace Masoudi Memorial Fund. 


The Masoudi family has asked that anyone wishing to honor Sam and Grace now, or in the future, do so by contributing to the Sam and Grace Masoudi Memorial Fund. [(NEW) - Letters from the family to the community]