For This Ancient, a Planned Gift Is Paying It Forward

Even decades after her time at Miss Porter’s School, Mercedese “Ellie” Roane Large ’81 still feels incredibly fortunate to have attended a school that invested so deeply in her. In her view, the scholarship she received was MPS' way of saying, “This is somebody who will enrich this community as much as she will take from it.” Recognizing the value of the school’s investment in her, Ellie wants other girls to have the same experience and opportunity.

This, along with the lifelong friends she made among fellow Ancients and even teachers at Farmington, inspired her to dedicate a large portion of her estate to MPS. Ellie’s tenure on the Board of Trustees has given her an appreciation for the economics of running a school like MPS and helped her realize that “even little gifts matter. Even this small gift of mine can help somebody.”

As a proud member of the Moonbeams Circle, Ellie encourages her fellow Ancients who are thinking about how to manage their own estates to get started sooner rather than later.

“There are so many tools that you can use if it feels overwhelming to inform yourself.” Ellie found it relatively easy to work with an attorney to create her estate plan and set up her will and life insurance policy to benefit MPS. From her perspective, it’s a worthy step to take as one of those “incredibly lucky” women who attended Miss Porter’s School.