To the Editor:
I am a parent of a Dartmouth senior who participated in a service trip to Trinidad for Dartmouth's chapter of Habitat for Humanity last spring break. My son, Anders, who is currently in Europe on an LSA, just e-mailed me the article (The Dartmouth, Sept. 25, "Police probe Tucker embezzlement") about the Tucker Foundation and the embezzled money. My wife and I, along with Anders' younger brother and sister, all participated in a fundraiser here in Denver to help pay some of the costs of that trip to Trinidad. As a result, I was very interested in your article.
Anders, his mother and his two siblings are all talented musicians. They performed a house concert at the house of one of my wife's cousins, getting some donations of wine, food, etc. We all worked hard making arrangements, rehearsing the music, picking up supplies and so on. The result was a fun event that raised a substantial amount of money for Habitat for Humanity. Fortunately, everything that was turned in to the Tucker Foundation was in checks. Anders did tell me that in a separate fundraising effort he got some cash that he turned in as cash, as requested. That money is probably gone.
I don't mind all of our hard work, and now I am especially glad that we paid with checks. I am appreciative of the opportunity Anders enjoyed and I am happy for the folks in Trinidad who benefited from the project. I am happy that there is an organization like the Tucker Foundation, encouraging students to do more than go to school.
As a Dartmouth and Thayer School graduate, I am intrigued by the comments about trust and its role in the Dartmouth community. I would hate to think that this experience might foster a lot of skepticism or cynicism. I do hope that the Tucker Foundation can find that tricky balance between trusting people and being careful about people. I would have been furious if I thought our hard work in Denver had purchased somebody's electronic equipment in Hanover, but that alone would not justify wholesale mistrust.
