NCL honors 17 girls for over 5,000 hours of philanthropy

Six years, 5,117 philanthropy hours, and enough memories to fill a library of scrapbooks came to a close on March 6 as the Saratoga-Los Gatos Chapter of National Charity League (NCL) celebrated their annual Senior Recognition. This year's ceremony, themed "Pearls of Hope," honored 27 girls, 17 from Saratoga High, for their work in the group.

"At first I was worried that there would be too many people, but it worked out well," said senior Sammi Lotti. "The dancing was really fun and everyone looked beautiful."

Six years, 5,117 philanthropy hours, and enough memories to fill a library of scrapbooks came to a close on March 6 as the Saratoga-Los Gatos Chapter of National Charity League (NCL) celebrated their annual Senior Recognition. This year’s ceremony, themed “Pearls of Hope,” honored 27 girls, 17 from Saratoga High, for their work in the group.

“At first I was worried that there would be too many people, but it worked out well,” said senior Sammi Lotti. “The dancing was really fun and everyone looked beautiful.”

The evening consisted of a program, dinner and dancing with over 500 attendees. Each girl was presented while a previously recorded remembrance played and pictures from their youth, family and NCL years were shown. The girls wore all-white dresses, symbolizing the new beginning high school graduation brings and chose a song to play as they were met by their parents and given a medallion by their mothers to commemorate their time in NCL.

“I thought [the program] went really well. All the girls’ speeches were very nice and the moms looked like they were all going to cry with joy,” said senior Natalie Riccomini.

The evening wrapped up with a recognition dance where the honorees and escorts did a Foxtrot to “Because you loved me” by Celine Dion. After a long six years of teas, meetings and cultural outings, many of the girls were sad to see their NCL experience end but were happy to have it end in such a perfect night.

“I’m sad that NCL is all over and I”ll miss the girls, but I’ll mostly miss the community service,” said Lotti. “Because of NCL, I’m defintely going to get involved in community service in college because it makes me happy.”

The Heritage Oaks Chapter of NCL also had their Senior Recognition on March 13, but due to printing deadlines it could not be covered. In addition to Lotti and Riccomini, seniors Ally Doles, Madeline Rothenberg, Emily Baba, Maddy Renalds, Courtney Chaffin, Jordan Leonard, Nicala Pedicini, Anna Schroeder, Nicole Gragnola, Natalie Tkalcevic, Samantha Tsang, Melissa Archer, Sonja Brenner, Tanya Valluri and Sophia Cooper were all recognized on March 6.