All of us at the Hope Fund are hard at work preparing for the upcoming application cycle and the next successful year of the Hope Reichbach Memorial Foundation internship program, but we’d like to take a moment to thank somebody who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in supporting the mission of the Hope Fund to provide internship opportunities for New York City college students. As you may know, we recently held a benefit concert for the fund at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights, featuring Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music and the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra. All the proceeds from the concert—upwards of seven thousand dollars—went directly to the Hope Fund.

We were able to keep all the proceeds for the fund itself thanks to the efforts of one unbelievably generous individual: Ms. Wanda Fleck, the manager of the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music. Wanda not only paid for all the concert expenses out of her own pocket, but she also took the lead in planning and coordinating the event. Thanks to her remarkable generosity, the scholarship for one of this year’s Hope Fund interns is already paid for in full. We’d also like to thank the musicians who selflessly donated their time and energy to making this concert happen.

Wanda most certainly did not ask for us to write this note, and was content to contribute her time and money without recognition, but in light of the extraordinary magnitude of her aid to the Hope Fund, we would feel remiss if we did not mention and praise what she has done for us. We are deeply appreciative and deeply grateful for all her work; there are surely not many people like her in this world. It is thanks to Wanda and people like her that the Hope Fund is able to continue its work, and to keep the memory of Hope alive.

Happy holidays to you and yours, from all of us at the Hope Fund.