It’s not often that two Yale College classes celebrate their five-year reunions on the same weekend. Rarer still is when they both manage to shatter the same fundraising record. For the classes of 2015 and 2016, however, their recent reunions saw them toast both their bright college years and their record-setting commitments to Yale.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the five-year reunions for 2015 and 2016 until this summer. The two classes came to campus to celebrate on June 9–12. They also commemorated their reunion gift totals. Each reunion gift comprises every dollar given to the university in a five-year period. Both classes broke the record for the amount given for a fifth reunion.

For 2015, their gift encompassed donations from 2015 to 2020 and totaled $1,268,024. Reflecting on this unprecedented amount, co-chair of the reunion Eric Chen ’15, ’20 MBA, ’20 MD says, “We’re thrilled that thirty-seven percent of the class participated in giving with over $35,000 raised specifically for the Alumni Fund. We’re all very proud to continue to support Yale, a place that has helped shape us into the individuals we are today.”

The class of 2016 shared in the festivities. When they recorded their five-year reunion gift total in 2021, they had eclipsed 2015’s impressive sum by over a million dollars. The $2,286,842 raised by the class of 2016 in the five years after their graduation marks a new all-time high for a fifth reunion at Yale.

“Our cohort's love for Yale has remained strong,” says reunion gift co-chair Charlie Goodyear ’16. “Thirty-four percent of our class participated in giving, and $58,000 of our total is for the Alumni Fund. Yale does an enormous amount for its students and faculty, and it also contributes a great deal to all humanity. We want to support that, and through our giving help improve the world.”