A two-year SAF grant of $65,000 was awarded to Walter Scudder School in 2024 to complete the Gordon Sherman Boys Hostel (dorm) above. It will house 90 boys from distant villages who live too far from Tindivanam to attend secondary school.
Walter Scudder founded the school in 1872 when he turned the village school in Tindivanam into an accredited high school. He did not have funds for a good building, so he was forced to erect one with mud walls and burlap partitions that divided the facility into rooms.
He tried for many years to raise funds for a proper building, but money came in slowly and it was only after the end of World War I that he was able to raise money for a suitable facility. It officially opened in 1925.
The school is coed today and has over 900 students in grades six to twelve.
In January 2024, Walter Scudder IV, a student at Eastern Connecticut University and an SAF Scholarship winner, visited the school his great-great-grandfather founded.
He also spent time at Scudder Memorial Hospital in Ranipet.
SAF Board Member Jack Gillmar and Walter with SMH officials and, via gold statue, Aunt Ida.
Of the hospital, Walter wrote: “Not only were the doctors skilled in their specialties, but they were also gifted in their communication with anxious and hopeless patients. The doctors truly do a remarkable job giving their patients both hope to battle their illnesses and to put their faith in God.”
As Walter IV saw firsthand, both Walter Scudder School and Scudder Memorial Hospital are sterling examples of our Scudder Association Foundation motto, “Service to Others.”
