On November 30, Parker will be hosting annual alumni gatherings in San Francisco and Los Angeles in order to bring alumni back together post–graduation. Upper School English teacher Theresa Collins, Upper School history teacher Andrew Bigelow, and Principal Dan Frank will be running the reunion on the West Coast. The Associate Director of Alumni Engagement Joseph Bruno planned the reunions and the trips that go along with them.

“During these events, typically one of the components is that Dr. Frank attends in order to meet with alums, along with a couple faculty members,” Collins said. “This year I was asked if I’d be willing to attend.”

The gathering in LA will take place at the home of a Parker alum on November 29. The event in San Francisco is set for November 30 at a cafe located in the city’s Mission District.

“The idea is to tap into all of the alumni out on the West Coast who don’t always get to come back to Parker for homecoming,” Bigelow said. “There are also a bunch of recent graduates who attend many of the colleges in the area, such as USC, Stanford, and the Claremont colleges.”

“The significance of these gatherings is to bring Parker alums together for an evening to connect, to share stories, and to update one another on what has been going on in their lives,” Bruno said.

“It’s a great event, especially for younger alums who’ve moved to big cities for college, or for their first job,” Bruno said. “It’s a great opportunity for those alums to come to the gatherings and have a network of people who have also had the Parker experience.”

Parker hosts annual alumni gatherings in cities with high populations of graduates who both attend schools and are working there currently.

“The five cities we hold gatherings in annually are Boston, D.C., LA, San Francisco, and New York,” Bruno said. “There are around 500 alums in New York, 300 in Los Angeles, 200 in San Francisco, and about 200 in both Boston and D.C.”

Alumni and friends gatherings typically follow the same schedule.

“These gatherings are social events that are typically cocktail parties with appetizers that all start at 6:30 p.m. and end at 8:30 p.m.,” Bruno said. “There’s around an hour of socializing and reuniting with friends, and then Dr. Frank or a chair in the city who helped plan the event will welcome everyone to the event. They will give an update on what’s been going on at Parker, and then hand it off to the teachers who are there to talk about what’s been going on in the classroom today.”

Bigelow and Collins are looking forward to reconnecting with students and attending the event.

“Every year our kids leave and we miss them,” Bigelow said. “I’m dying to know what they’re doing for a living, how they feel about it, to catch up with them.”

“I’ve always enjoyed keeping in touch with former students,” Collins said. “What I’m most excited about is to talk with the alumni about what their paths have been since they left Parker, and how they made it all the way out to California.”