The event proved an overwhelming success, with more registrants, more volunteers and simply more joy than PCWW leadership ever imagined. “It’s been a decade since I last ran into someone from my class in the wild, and today I met two — one of them a former roommate, the other someone I volunteered with,” wrote a member of the Class of 2012 who attended. “And all the conversations I had were beautiful.” 

More than 3,000 miles away, somewhere between Pensacola and Jacksonville, Juliette ’86 and Michael Reynolds ’85, president and vice president of the Princeton Alumni Association of North Florida (PAANF), drove their car with two tigers in the back seat. While PAANF serves alumni across multiple North Florida municipalities — spanning Pensacola to the west and Palm Coast on the Atlantic — club activities rarely strayed far from Jacksonville. When the couple assumed leadership posts last October, they embarked on a listening tour to see how the club could pull together. 

Juliette, who had served as the Princeton Tiger mascot when she was an undergraduate, thought it might be fun if each PAANF hub adopted and named its own three-foot ceramic tiger, purchased through the Alumni Association. Hence, the Reynolds‘ two striped passengers were christened Tally Cat by Tallahassee alumni and Luna by Pensacola Princetonians at two weekend lunches. (Their siblings include Jaxton from Jacksonville and Magnum PU from Amelia Island. Alumni in Gainesville, Ocala and Palm Coast have upcoming events to meet and name their cubs.) 

“Each tiger has its own personality now because its naming is very specific to its hometown,” Michael said. “We also gave out 200th anniversary pins, so coming into these towns — where alumni gatherings had been limited for 30 years — with tchotchkes and a tiger and a free lunch was a big win. It generated enthusiasm for more engagement.” 

“They’re going to be able to use those tigers at every event they have in the future,” Juliette added. “We couldn’t have done this without the Spark Fund.” 

The Spark Fund initiative was launched by the Alumni Council in February to commemorate the Alumni Association’s year-long bicentennial celebration: alumni organizations were invited to submit proposals for Spark Funds to support innovative events that transcend traditional programming, spark meaningful alumni connections and inspire creative engagement. 

PCWW didn’t have a recent track record of organizing an event like its Mercer Island field day but following April 2025’s all-alumni gathering with President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 in Seattle, regional alumni sensed momentum for greater local engagement. “This event built on prior club experiences, but now it’s almost like a new superpower that we have, to know that we can pull off events at this scale,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan *02, who became president of the club last October. “The Spark Fund, as the name implies, definitely sparked a new chapter for our association, and that’s something that I hope can inspire other regional associations as well.” 

That hope has already taken practical form. Lauren Maynard-Buck ’24, the club’s vice president, completed a playbook for peer associations that want to create compelling in-person and digital experiences through the strategic use of AI tools. For Family Field Day, AI helped carry much of the planning and documentation load, from volunteer coordination and receipt tracking to signage, visual planning and day-of checklists, freeing volunteers to focus on relationships, community-building and execution. 

“AI was a genuine force multiplier, helping us turn volunteer energy into a repeatable playbook,” Maynard-Buck said. 

Spark Funds are useful to alumni organizations that are in a growth stage or attempting a revival of sorts, especially in circumstances where the group’s finances might be limited. The Association of Jewish Princeton Alumni, established in 2023, was eager to expand its activities geographically beyond the Northeast. To support a strategy of partnering with regional clubs for events, AJPA applied for Spark Funds to supply “Party in a Box” kits to boost Tiger spirit — Princeton-themed candlesticks, AJPA-themed noisemakers, branded pens and stickers — at gatherings for Shabbat, Purim, Passover and other Jewish holidays. 

“Whatever the event happens to be, we send a little love from our central AJPA events team to the local liaison,” said Beth Stahlman ’89, AJPA president. “The other thing that the Spark grant is allowing us to do is to provide reimbursement so that a local alumni can host a Shabbat dinner for 10 people or put on another type of event with refreshments for alumni.” 

Even the most-engaged alumni groups can benefit from Spark Funds. The Princeton Alumni Association of Singapore (PAAS) prides itself on its level of participation and number of activities, but its leadership saw an opportunity to reach mid-career alumni with children — a traditionally elusive demographic for events — and spark cross-generational friendships. Their Spark Fund proposal enabled a 200th anniversary scavenger hunt through the Asian Civilisations Museum (Aug. 29), one of Singapore’s premier cultural institutions, and a Tiger Beach Clean-Up (Sept. 5). 

“Both 200th-anniversary events are not merely appropriate for all ages, they are genuinely exciting for younger and older kids, for families, for singles and for groups of friends,” said Amanda Goehring ’97, a PAAS member. “We also wanted a service component, in line with Princeton’s [unofficial] motto, so that the celebration is grounded in values and not only festivities.” 

It shouldn’t be difficult to locate the Princetonians at either event. Architect Razvan Ghilic-Micu *12 created two custom 200th-anniversary T-shirts, “turning every participant into a walking ambassador for the milestone,” said Heather Carmichael ’97, PAAS president. 

“We knew that to draw people out we had to offer something genuinely nice, and we wanted every participant at both events to receive one,” Carmichael added. “Razvan’s designs are hybrids, weaving Princeton and distinctly Singaporean elements together in a clever and ingenious way. T-shirts may look like swag, but these are unique to Princeton and Singapore, and every time one of us wears one, anywhere in the world, we are raising awareness of our global community.”

Whether it was the T-shirts or the programming, the events are already surpassing expectations. More than twice the expected number of alumni and family have already registered for the scavenger hunt. 

Spark Funds are helping celebrate another monumental milestone: the 150th anniversary of the Princeton Club of St. Louis (PCSTL), which also serves Greater Missouri and southwestern Illinois regions. Pitching a “StoryCorps meets Antiques Roadshow” club history, PCSTL leadership received support to develop both a narrative (to be published in keepsake booklet form) and archive collection of digital assets to include ephemera such as photographs of people, places and Princetoniana, and typewritten documents. Research will include oral histories from audio and video interviews of members, including the Old Guard (66th Reunion and beyond), and a special PCSTL Tiger Memorabilia & Memories event is scheduled so that members can bring Princeton and club memorabilia to share, display and have professionally scanned for the permanent archive. 

“We are excited to connect with the Old Guard and members from across the decades to preserve their recollections both of Princeton and of the Princeton Club of St. Louis,” said Christina Clarke ’97, PCSTL’s immediate past-president. “It is our desire to encapsulate [Alumni Council President] Ryan Ruskin’s ’Our Princeton. Our time‘ motto in this tangible, historical form that can be continuously updated going forward. We are hopeful that this effort will inspire other regional associations to consider keeping a historical record of their own association’s history as well.” 

The Spark Funds are a unique opportunity for an alumni organization to think bigger, to bring to life that outside-the-box idea or strategy that, until now, has lacked only one ingredient: financial support. The Alumni Council already has approved 23 awards, ranging from $250 to $5,000, to help Princeton alumni organizations reach their potential, and the deadline for the final round of Spark Funds is Aug. 23. Apply today.