Second Alumni Weekend

SAVANNAH, Ga. — When the Windsor Forest Alumni Collective staged its first alumni weekend in October 2025, the founding board paid for it themselves. There was no organization yet, no account to draw from, and no guarantee anyone would show. More than six hundred alumni came anyway, from over thirteen graduating classes.

In February, the Collective came back with a different plan. This time the weekend was built to generate something.

It opened in the stands. Alumni had designed and sold branded merchandise in the weeks beforehand, and they wore it to the Knights basketball game, a block of branded Knights in the bleachers, visible from the court. The first the organization had ever raised on its own outside of donations.

The social returned to Rachael's on the Southside, the same room that hosted the October gathering, with one change: a cover charge at the door. Alumni paid it as show of support and appreciation.

Then, on the final day, the weekend turned outward.

Working alongside Neighbors Feeding Neighbors, alumni spent the day organizing and stocking deliveries of food, clothing, and toiletries for Savannah families. No banner, no program, no photo op built into the schedule. Sorting, boxing, loading.

That last day marks the distance the Collective traveled in four months. The October weekend was about proving alumni would come back — a football game, a cookout, a room full of people finding out who else was in town. February assumed the answer and asked a second question: now that we're here, what are we doing?

"The energy from first weekend was high and infectious we had to do something else for our fellow alumni. But we had to know that they were in this with us and the community. The answer was overwhelming yes." - Jamela Lewis

The organization's structure caught up a month later. In March 2026, the Windsor Forest Alumni Collective was formally recognized as a 501(c)(3) — with a scholarship already awarded, two weekends behind it, and, for the first time, money it had raised.