Donor Profiles

Seeing my bursary recipient grow and develop has been an incredibly rewarding experience.”

— NATANYA KHAZZAM ’02

DIVERGENT PATHS TAKEN

LEAD TO COMMON CAUSE

BY PATRICK PEOTTO, FORMER LCC ASSISTANT HEAD

ON THE SURFACE, NATANYA KHAZZAM ’02 AND MICHAEL SOARES ’06 (PRE-U ’07) ARE VERY DIFFERENT. BUT DEEP DOWN, THEY HAVE MUCH IN COMMON.

I decided to share a bit of my financial success and help others afford an LCC education.”

— MICHAEL SOARES ’06 (PRE-U ’07)

“I was part of the first coed class in grade 5,” Natanya says. “Of the eight girls in that class, I’m still in touch with most of them.” She also has maintained contact with her former coaches. Playing competitive sports with their guidance “helped develop my leadership skills.” Michael joined LCC in grade 3. He recalls his introduction to programming using MicroWorlds. “I loved it so much my dad asked my teacher, Mr. Geller, for a copy so I could use it at home.” Natanya went on to Amherst to study liberal arts and play rugby and hockey. Michael turned down a significant scholarship to Queen’s to study engineering at Waterloo. Natanya is the president of Heritage Home Fashions, where she touches on all aspects of the business while focusing on product development and sales. Michael is a software engineer at Chime Financial, where he leads a small team of engineers in tech design and code review around scalable distributed systems. “I like logical challenges because a lot of what I do is just that. I’m very logical when it comes to decisions.” Despite divergent interests, they are both thriving in demanding careers where they leverage some skills and passions first ignited at LCC. And they have one more thing in common; they both donated to the Power of Possibilities Bursary Campaign for essentially the same reason. Natanya decided to establish a bursary because of what the

LCC network had done for her family. Playing community sports, she “saw kids who couldn’t afford to go to LCC. They deserved the chance to experience what a special place it is and the impact it can have on their future,” she says. “Seeing my bursary recipient grow and develop has been an incredibly rewarding experience.” Michael expressed similar sentiments. “I feel the school really helped me achieve what I wanted. So I decided to share a bit of my financial success and help others afford an LCC education.”

He has seen LCC evolve and feels it can help fill a massive need for STEM expertise. Like true LCC alumni, they’ve both used head and heart to make a difference. The funds raised for The Power of Possibilities campaign makes an LCC education a reality for students who would otherwise be unable to attend the school. By creating a perpetual financial stream, it bolsters the LCC endowment and fulfills dreams.

Together, alumni, parents, retired and current faculty and staff have donated a total of

$8.1M

Thank you to the 2020–2021 Leadership Development Committee (LDC): Tom Assimes ’84 and Adam Turner ’87 (Pre-U ’88) (co-chairs), John Antoniou ’84, Michael Flinker, Louis Gendron, Gary Harper ’73, Karyn Lassner, Doug Lewin ’87, David Schwartz ’87