Annual Fund

Dewey Benefield was born in Decatur, Georgia, in 1931. He attended the University of Georgia (UGA), where he earned an undergraduate degree in journalism and a law degree. While in Athens, he was a sports correspondent for the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution. During this time, Mr. Benefield had a part-time job in the UGA Athletic Department, where he was a protégé of Dan Magill, UGA’s legendary Sports Information Director. Mr. Benefield served as a lawyer in the Air Force before attending the Atlanta Business College in preparation for a short career with Arthur Anderson in Atlanta.

In 1958, Mr. Benefield accepted a position with the Sea Island Company, where he served as the executive assistant to the president of the company and also worked closely with the company’s owners, Bill Jones, Sr. and Bill Jones, Jr. Until his retirement from Sea Island, Mr. Benefield held positions of increased responsibility, most notably in helping develop and activate a comprehensive master plan for the company’s real estate portfolio.

Mr. Benefield and his late wife, Tiggie, hosted a group of friends at their home for a series of meetings in 1969 to discuss the need for a college preparatory school in the Golden Isles. On August 31, 1970, their children, Jim Benefield ’81 and Helen Benefield Billings ’83, were the first two students to enroll and attend Frederica Academy in the old abandoned hospital in downtown Brunswick. He led the effort to move Frederica Academy to its current location in the mid 1970s. All four of his grandchildren graduated from Frederica Academy, with Catherine, his youngest, graduating in 2020. Mr. Benefield remains a civic and community servant leader icon within the Golden Isles and a valuable advisor and benefactor to Frederica Academy.

The Annual Fund is the primary fundraising program designed to close the gap between tuition revenue and what it costs to operate the school. Frederica Academy, like other National Association of Independent School (NAIS) schools, only charges about 70-80% of what it actually costs to operate the school. Donors who make leadership gifts ($1,000 and above) to the Annual Fund qualify for the Dewey and Tiggie Benefield Society, named in honor of Frederica Academy’s leading co-founders. While every gift to the Annual Fund is important, gifts at the Benefield Society level provide transformational opportunities. During the 2019-2020 Annual Fund campaign, 97% of the revenue came from Benefield Society donors.

Through the Annual Fund, Frederica Academy is able to provide the differentiators that are the very reason parents and other stakeholders support the school in the first place.  Meeting and exceeding each year’s stated fundraising goal helps ensure that Frederica: maintains low student-teacher ratios; offers a portfolio of 14 AP courses: provides a foreign language curriculum spanning pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade; allows students to pursue and participate in any artistic or athletic passion; implements health and wellness safeguards during the COVID pandemic; and offers countless other hallmarks of the Frederica experience.

Donor support ultimately helps to keep tuition as low as possible for all FA families. By making a gift to the Annual Fund, parents receive a tax-deductible benefit for at least part of their investment in their child’s education.