The Annual Fund helps strengthen the Stanford OHS student community through financial support for clubs, competitions, international trips, guest speakers, and student life events from Pixel Festival to Prom. Here's an example:

The Ethics Bowl Club has attracted significant interest from Stanford OHS students annually. The club is organized around preparing for the Northern California High School Ethics Bowl regional competition hosted by the Santa Cruz University Philosophy Department each year. This event is one of the largest regional high school Ethics Bowl events in the nation, attracting more than 20 teams from around Northern California.

"Our teams have done an outstanding job every year! With the good fortune that is born of hard work, we have had a team win the regional event five of the last six years, and advance to the National High School Ethics Bowl competition held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While there is no doubt that we have all enjoyed our teams’ success in these competitive events, it is rightfully overshadowed by the success we have had in achieving the original goals of the program: sharpening minds and building relationships. We are grateful to the Annual Fund for fully supporting travel and registration to this event!" - Will Beals, Philosophy Core Instructor

This year, the Annual Fund supported the development of new curricula including Pixelia Publishing, a collaboration between Stanford OHS instructors, alumni, and students to edit and publish books. "Bath: An Adumbration in Rhyme. A Critical Edition for Readers of Jane Austen," is the work of English teacher Ben Wiebracht, and seven Stanford OHS students and recent alumni. Taking the late-eighteenth-century poem by the minor poet John Matthews, they created a new edition which includes a richly annotated text of the poem, as well as an introduction that situates the book in relation to Austen’s life and career. The Annual Fund helped cover the cost to publish hard-copies of the book and allow our students, alumni, and instructors to be published authors and editors!

Our staff and instructors are encouraged to pursue academic and professional advancement through increased funding for research, and opportunities to travel and participate in conferences and workshops. For example:

"Since COVID, the Latin program​ has benefited from the Annual Fund by enabling instructors to attend and lead professional presentations and conferences. Several instructors presented at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in the Spring of 2022, an academic conference normally reserved for established faculty. Financial support from the Annual Fund helped make this happen on various levels, by covering our school's membership, travel for instructors to be there in person, and facilitating the online presentation, and more.

The Annual Fund also allows students of our Latin program to participate in fun extra-academic national competitions such as the National Classical Etymology Exam and the National Latin Exam, and covers academic membership dues such as the American Classical League (for instructor sponsors of student events), and the National Junior Classical League. All of this is closely related to the work and training we do in Latin Club, but is not exclusively part of Latin Club, as these events are open to all Stanford OHS Latin students." - Anna Pisarello, Latin Instructor