On Thursday, May 19, the National Scholastic Chess Foundation held its first-ever awards dinner at the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge. Presented in partnership with ICC, the 2022 Chess Service Awards honored four women who have made a lifetime contribution to growing scholastic chess.
On Tuesday, October 5, 2021, the NSCF’s Executive Director Sunil Weeramantry had the distinct privilege of inducting Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield into the US Chess Hall of Fame. You can read the full article in our News section. (Photos courtesy of John Brezina.)
Each school year, cities across Broward County host the Mayors’ Chess Challenge, a free open play event that celebrates the role of chess in education and in community. Players of all ages and abilities come out to play against local mayors and other elected officials, as well as against their friends. First envisioned by Mayor Mike Ryan of Sunrise, this year we had events across Broward County, as well as Boca Raton, and were planning one for Miami Beach.
Of course, the City of Sunrise event is always a highlight of the season. At this year’s celebration, the NSCF presented a thank you proclamation to Chief Anthony Rosa and the City of Sunrise Police Dept for their support since the very first workshop back in October 2014. The City proclaimed this Saturday as Jacorey Bynum Day in recognition of his rapid growth as a chess player. And then Mayor Ryan surprised our Executive Director, Sunil Weeramantry, by presenting him with the Key to the City of Sunrise in honor of the tremendous partnership the city has had with the NSCF. Other highlights of the day included GM Hikaru Nakamura coming out to play, and a tandem simul with NM Evan Rabin from NY joining our own WFM Dr. Amelia Hernandez in a tandem simul against our Sunrise school kids. It was a very fun day!
In May, the NSCF and our Board of Directors hosted a fundraising event in the gorgeous 5th Avenue offices of TreppPort. While Rick Trepp is a long-time member of our board and current Chairman, the highlight of the evening was hearing from his son, Will Trepp, COO of TreppPort and one of Sunil’s students back before he even started school. Will shared how so many of the lessons he learned playing chess have helped him in the high pressure world of commercial finance. It was a fitting presentation as the theme of the event was Establishing a Legacy and the NSCF’s commitment to ensure many of the ideas developed by Sunil are available for future generations of students. Among the guests for the evening were two other former champions who got their start with Sunil, John Jarecki and Danny Edelman. John Jarecki, at one point the youngest-ever US chess master, was the first and only person to win the National Elementary and National Junior High Chess Championship in the same year. International Master Danny Edelman was the 1984 junior high school champion, 1985 high school champion, and 1986 high school co-champion.
On October 22, 2016, the NSCF presented “The Queen’s Journey” at ArtsWestchester in White Plains. The performance explored the connections between chess, music, and dance. Jason Kouchak, a UK-based recording artist and chess enthusiast, presented his musical and dance creations ably assisted by some of our NSCF chess “queens,” professional dancer Adrianna Aguilar and violinist Carolyn Weeramantry. You can click here to see the Highlights Video, And you can read the story on Chessbase.
On a beautiful early summer evening, Sunil’s good friends Jennifer Selendy and Kelly Posner-Gerstenhaber hosted a fundraiser for the NSCF at the law offices of Kirkland & Ellis, high atop Manhattan. The event featured a simul with Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. At the time, Hikaru had just been crowned US Champion for his third time. Of course, Hikaru is now the 5X US Champion.
In the opening ceremony, NSCF board member Jay Hack presented Hikaru with a T-shirt and a mounted scoresheet commemorating the first USCF-rated tournament Hikaru ever played in – the NSCF-sponsored 1995 U.S. Junior Chess Congress East. Jay pointed out that Hikaru’s first USCF rating was 684 and, by then was 2200 points higher, so don’t worry about your current rating. Just keep playing and studying and you can get there too!
Among the guests that evening were many of our NSCF chess instructors and students, plus some future stars: Alex Ostrovskiy, already an FM, would become an IM soon after at the age of 17, and William Graif is a National Master and studying at the University of Chicago!
The National Scholastic Chess Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization. Donations are tax-deductible. Relevant IRS information is available on request.
