George Weiss

“My fraternity was asked to host a Christmas party at a community service project for a dozen kids from South Philly. The kids were only a few years younger than me. I grew up very poor outside of Boston. Those kids and I became friends. We would play basketball together. I would bring them to Penn football games. We talked about everything, and we stayed in touch.”

In his mid-20s, he invited these 12 friends to lunch and they discussed their lives. They spoke about how some of their siblings had dropped out of school, how some had gone to jail, how some of their sisters had gotten pregnant, and in spite of all this, they had managed to graduate.

When he asked his friends why their paths had differed from those of their peers, one of the kids said, “George, we couldn’t look you in the eye if we’d dropped out.”

At that very moment, George Weiss made a pact with God. He promised, “If You ever give me the financial wherewithal to make a difference, I will do what I can to help the poor through education, I will help my university and I will help my religion.”

Career

George Weiss became a highly successful businessman, first as a stockbroker, and then as President of George Weiss Associates Inc., a money-management firm with offices in Hartford, Conn., and New York. As a wealthy man, he kept his pledge.

Philanthropy

He has donated over $80 million to Penn to fund endowed professorships, a deanship, endowed scholarships, the Weiss Tech House, the Weiss Center for International Financial Research at Wharton and the George A. Weiss Pavilion at Franklin Field. In addition, he donated $20 million to endow four PIK professorships as part of the Penn Integrates Knowledge initiative.

But he is most recognized as the founder of Say Yes to Education, a program that he started in 1987 by promising to pay college tuition for 112 sixth graders from Philadelphia’s Belmont Elementary School, if they graduated from high school.

Since these kids faced tremendous odds, coming from one of the most troubled neighborhoods in the city, George coupled his financial gift with hands-on involvement in each of the student’s lives. He provided them with tutors, counselors, summer programs and even his home telephone number. They could contact him whenever they felt the need.

Through his strong connections with these students, and the ongoing support, 20 of the students had earned undergraduate degrees by 2007, 10 had earned associate degrees; 14 had vocational degrees and 65 had high school diplomas or GEDs. The Belmont 112 - minus eight who died, all but one violently - are in their 30s now.

This program has expanded to 22,000 students in Philadelphia; Hartford, Conn.; Cambridge, Mass. and Harlem, N.Y. Through all this, George learned the importance of early intervention.

He thus changed the mentoring program in order to intervene in the lives of students as early as kindergarten, and to provide comprehensive academic and social support for the selected students’ family members, including scholarships for parents who choose to further their own education.

A Remarkable Heritage

George Weiss has established a remarkable heritage that will continue to affect generations to come. A defiant child encompassed by poverty and a life of not so quiet desperation has found direction and support; aggressive children dealing with the street life of drugs and gangs have been positively affected by George’s pledge. A high school or college diploma was the farthest thing from these kids’ minds. But this taken-for-granted fate has been transformed, and now these individuals will carry the torch and shine their light on so many others. .

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