Video Description:

In the blue background on the left side of the brief animation of motion of PSD logo of yellow hands open with white roof and columns, yellow roof and door come out. On the right side, Yellow lettering of “PB’s Corner February 2022”

Dark blue background with gold frame, in the background there is 10% opacity of Philadelphia city outline. Top left: PSD 200 logo. Top right: 200th Anniversary Gala. Peter Bailey appear. He is wearing a blue dress shirt with pattern color tie. He is standing.

Hello everyone. These are my updates for the month of March 2022. Historically. I spend time in these monthly vlogs updating you about this school. This month, however, I’m dedicating the updates to the PSD 200th Anniversary Gala last Saturday. What a special event. We started planning in 2017 and due to COVID, and some delays and barriers, it took us until this past Saturday to actually pull it off. 488 people were in attendance to celebrate with us. We had a great planning team,a great event and a great venue. The Crystal Tea Room is on the 9th floor in center city Philadelphia. People walked into the venue and I think they were stunned to see how beautiful it was with the lighting and the layout. It really was stunning.

We are still recovering from the event but we were happy to mark this milestone of 200 years of PSD’s history. I will share with you some of the highlights of the evening but you can also see some of the information on our website. We will be posting through social media on Facebook and Instagram, too. Here are some of the key takeaways from the experience. We had three special guests that night. We had Lauren Ridloff, who is an actress. She was not able to be with us in person because she is filming but she sent a video message which was wonderful to see. We also had Sandra Mae Frank, who is also an actress, and also just performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl. She was with us in person. Our third special guest did not get the video to us in time to be able to share it at the event but we will share it with you now. It is from Troy Kotsur and he sent his congratulations. You will see all three of those congratulations here:

“Here’s to you, PSD! Here’s to 200 years! Congratulations! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“Here’s to the 200th Anniversary of PSD! Thank you!”

“Hi, I’m Troy Kotsur, from the movie Coda. I want to say Congratulations to PSD on your 200th anniversary! Congrats!”

There are a few people I would like to recognize but before doing that I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Bob Shilling and the other members of the development team. Jon, Karen, Amy and Joshua all in the IA department. This event would not have been possible without all of your hard work. Thank you so much. Our presenters included Peggy Steele, our board chair, Denise Brown, the President of the PSD Alumni Association, and Derek Green who is our city Councilman. Now Derek was there to share comments in person but also his assistant is a Coda. Their parents graduated from PSD so it is nice to have that additional connection.

We had a meal and then later that evening we heard from the parent of one of our students. Her name is Beverly Caldwell and she shared about the impact PSD has had on her and her son’s lives. It was a touching story. We also heard from Mr. James Maguire. Many of you are familiar with him because of his long-standing support of the school. He talked about all his ties to PSD. The Maguire Foundation has been a supporter of the PSD community so we were thrilled to see him there as well as the CEO of the Maguire Foundation, his daughter Megan.

Sandra Mae Frank shared her comments from the stage and then we closed out the event. Of course in any gala like this we want to hear from the students. They were not there in person but we did share a music video with the students performing a song about belonging. It was beautiful to hear from them that night. The final part of the evening was the auction, both a silent auction and a live auction. I can’t tell you how much fun it was. I keep hearing positive responses from everyone who enjoyed themselves. If you were not able to be with us we hope to see you at the next one in 50 or 100 years. That concludes my summary from the event. It was a huge celebration and a huge success. Again, check the website and social media for other updates. See you next time.

End with a blue background. Top PSD logo of yellow hands open with white roof and columns, yellow roof and door. White Lettering “Pennsylvania School for the Deaf”

Four social media outlet logos on the bottom of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube logos. Yellow lettering “@psd1820”