GCC Foundation Kicks Off 2016 Annual Campaign

GREENFIELD — The Greenfield Community College Foundation’s 2016 annual campaign, Opening Doors to the Future, will kick off on March 31 with campaign co-chairs Rich Fahey and Nicole Fahey at the helm. Rich Fahey is returning as co-chair, while daughter-in-law Nicole is joining the campaign for the first time this year.

Greenfield Community College serves 5,500 students in five locations throughout Franklin and Hampshire counties. The 2016 campaign has established a goal of $825,000 by May 31 in support of students and programs at the college.

“Our nation’s higher-education system is increasingly replicating the great divide of our nation’s economic system. Social and economic mobility has all but disappeared — so too the middle class,” said GCC President Bob Pura. “But GCC, our foundation, alumni, and community have created a contradiction to that national narrative. We all help keep the doors to education and a better life open for all who are eager to work hard to achieve it.”

Rich Fahey, retired Advertising director for the Greenfield Recorder, noted that “many believe the cost of a higher education is becoming too expensive for many families. What we are doing in support of GCC is helping keep the doors open for all who come to the college to better themselves and enter into the middle class. I didn’t hesitate when I was asked to return for a third year helping out with the GCC Foundation annual campaign. My wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law are just a few whose lives were changed by GCC, and many generations into the future will continue to benefit from our work today.”

Nicole (Duprey) Fahey, a clinician at the Franklin County House of Corrections, enrolled at GCC at age 16 as an early-entrant student from Pioneer Valley Regional School in 2000, marking the start of a focused and accelerated educational journey from high-school sophomore to recipient of a master’s degree in just five years.

“My GCC experience laid the groundwork for a career that I love,” she said. “Everybody at the college — teachers and classmates — opened their doors and were so welcoming. And attending classes at GCC, with the range of ages and experiences each classmate represented, was humbling and inspiring. Witnessing their hard work to effect positive change encouraged me to direct my life’s work to helping do the same for others.”

For more information about the GCC Foundation and supporting the annual campaign, visit www.gcc.mass.edu/give or contact Regina Curtis, executive director of Resource Development and the GCC Foundation, at (413) 775-1600.