Donation & Ticket Terms

Effective August 5, 2026

This page explains what happens when you give money to Vaz Preparatory School Past Student Association, Florida Inc. ("VPSPSA") — as a donation, a gala ticket, a table, or a sponsorship. It covers where your money goes, what is and is not refundable, what is deductible, and who to write to when something is wrong.

Donations

How to give. Donations are made through the Donate page on this website and processed by Squarespace Payments. You may choose one of the suggested amounts or enter your own, and you may choose which fund your gift supports from the list on that page. Payment is by card or bank transfer.

What we receive. We receive your name, email address, billing address, the amount, the fund you selected, and whether you chose to cover the processing fee. We never receive or store your card number.

Covering the fee. The donation form offers you the option of adding approximately 3% to cover the payment processor's charge, so that the full amount you intended reaches the program. It is entirely optional. If you leave it unticked, we simply absorb the fee, and your gift is no less welcome.

Acknowledgment. You will receive an emailed receipt from the payment processor immediately. VPSPSA will send a separate acknowledgment letter for your records. If a receipt does not arrive within a few days, write to info@vpsalumni.org and we will send one.

Restricted gifts. When you select a fund, we honor that designation. If a program is fully funded, closed, or no longer viable, we will contact you before redirecting your gift. We will not quietly move money from the purpose you chose.

Donations are final. A gift to the association is not refundable. If a payment has genuinely gone wrong — a duplicated charge, an amount entered with an extra zero, a card used by someone who did not intend it — that is a processing error rather than a change of mind, and we will correct it. Write to info@vpsalumni.org and tell us what happened.

Recurring gifts

The donation form on this site accepts one-time gifts only. We do not set up recurring charges, so there is nothing to cancel and no subscription running quietly in the background. If we introduce recurring giving later, this page will say so and the cancellation route will be stated here before the first charge.

Gala tickets

Tickets to the 75th Anniversary Benefit Gala — Saturday, September 12, 2026, at the AC Hotel by Marriott Grand Ballroom, Kingston — are sold through two vendors:

Eventbrite, in US dollars, for buyers in the United States and Canada. TouchstoneLink, in Jamaican dollars, for buyers in Jamaica.

Both are independent companies. When you buy a ticket you are transacting with them under their own terms of sale and their own privacy policies, and their processing fees are theirs, not ours. Your ticket, however, is issued by VPSPSA and the terms on this page govern its use.

Tickets are non-refundable — and freely transferable

Buying a ticket is an act of giving. Every ticket to this gala is a contribution to Vaz Preparatory School. The association commits to the venue, the catering and the production months in advance, on the strength of tickets sold, and what remains after those costs goes to the school. Tickets are therefore not refundable. Please buy on that basis.

Your ticket is yours to give away. If you cannot attend, pass it to someone else — a family member, a classmate, a colleague, anyone at all. You do not need our permission and you do not need to tell us. Bring the ticket to the door and it will be honored, whoever is holding it.

If you have no one to give it to, give it to a teacher. This is what we would most like you to do. Vaz Prep's teachers are the reason this association exists and many of them will not otherwise be in the room on the night. Write to info@vpsalumni.org, tell us you would like your seat to go to a member of staff, and we will place it. You will have paid for a seat at the school's 75th and put a teacher in it, which is a better outcome than an empty chair and a refund.

Tables. A purchased table may be filled with whichever guests you choose, and you may change those names at any time. If you would like place cards or the seating plan to reflect specific names, send the final list to info@vpsalumni.org by Saturday, September 5, 2026 — one week before the event — so the venue can be given a settled plan. That is a courtesy, not a condition. Your guests are welcome either way.

If we cancel. If VPSPSA cancels the gala outright, ticket holders will be contacted directly and offered the choice of converting the purchase into a donation to the school or receiving the ticket price back. Vendor processing fees may not be recoverable, and we will say so honestly at the time.

If the date or venue changes. If the event is postponed or relocated, tickets remain valid for the new date or venue.

Circumstances beyond our control. If the event cannot go ahead because of a hurricane, a public health order, a venue failure, an act of government or anything else outside our reasonable control, we will do everything practical to reschedule rather than cancel, and we will account publicly for what happened to the money.

At the event

Admission requires a valid ticket, presented at the door in printed or digital form. The dress code is black tie preferred, and formal attire is equally welcome. The gala is an adults-only event unless otherwise stated on the ticket.

VPSPSA and the venue may refuse admission, or ask a guest to leave, where behavior is unsafe, unlawful or seriously disruptive.

The evening will be photographed and filmed, and those images will be used in the association's publications, on this website and on our social media channels. Attending the gala means you consent to appearing in them. If you would prefer not to, tell a member of the organizing committee on the night, or write to info@vpsalumni.org afterwards naming the image, and we will remove it.

Hotel accommodation is booked directly with the AC Hotel by Marriott through the group link on our Gala page. That booking is a contract between you and the hotel, subject to the hotel's own cancellation policy. VPSPSA receives no part of it and cannot amend or cancel it for you.

Sponsorships

Sponsorship commitments are confirmed in writing between the sponsor and VPSPSA, and the agreed benefits — logo placement, program advertising, table allocation, on-night recognition — are set out at that point.

Sponsorship payments are not refundable. Sponsorship funds the event as it is being built, and the commitments we make on the strength of it — print runs, signage, production — cannot be unwound. Where a sponsorship is withdrawn before anything at all has been produced, write to info@vpsalumni.org and we will discuss it in good faith.

Sponsor materials must reach us by the deadlines stated in the sponsorship booklet. We cannot guarantee inclusion in printed materials after those dates.

A sponsor's table seats may be filled by whomever the sponsor chooses, and those names may be changed at any time.

Because sponsorship carries benefits in return, it is not fully tax-deductible. See the section below.

Tax deductibility, stated carefully

Vaz Preparatory School Past Student Association, Florida Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 20-8175233). Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution.

That statement applies to donations. It does not apply in the same way to tickets and sponsorships, and it would be misleading to let it stand unqualified:

Gala tickets and tables carry goods and services in return — dinner, entertainment, the evening itself. Under US tax rules only the amount you pay above the fair market value of what you receive may be deductible. Where that applies, the deductible portion will be stated on your acknowledgment.

A seat you donate to a teacher is a different case, and a better one. If you give your seat back to the association rather than attending, you have received nothing in return, and the full ticket price may be deductible. Tell us at info@vpsalumni.org and we will issue an acknowledgment that says so.

Sponsorships carry advertising and recognition benefits, and their treatment depends on what those benefits are. Your acknowledgment will set out the value received.

Membership dues, where they carry member benefits, may not be deductible in full.

Donors in Jamaica and other countries should note that VPSPSA's 501(c)(3) status is a United States determination. It does not confer charitable status under Jamaican or any other national tax law.

We are an alumni association, not a tax advisor, and none of the above is tax advice. Please ask your own accountant about your own return. If you need a written acknowledgment for any gift, write to info@vpsalumni.org and we will provide one.

Currency, and what appears on your statement

Donations on this website are processed in US dollars. Eventbrite ticket sales are in US dollars; TouchstoneLink ticket sales are in Jamaican dollars. If you pay in a currency other than the one your card is denominated in, your bank will apply its own conversion rate and may add a foreign transaction fee. Those charges are your bank's and we do not receive them.

Donations made through this site will appear on your statement under the name of the payment processor or as Vaz Preparatory School Past Student Association. Ticket purchases will appear under Eventbrite or TouchstoneLink. If you see a charge you do not recognize, please write to info@vpsalumni.org before disputing it with your bank — it is almost always faster, and a chargeback costs the association a fee on top of the amount.

Errors, and how we handle them

If a price, a tier, or a ticket type is published in error, we will not simply take the money. We will contact you, tell you what the correct figure is, and give you the choice of proceeding at the corrected price or having the payment returned.

Your information

What we do with the personal and payment information involved in any of the above is set out in our Privacy Policy. In short: we do not sell it, we never see your card number, and you can ask us for a copy of what we hold at any time.

Changes to these terms

We may update this page. The version that applies to your purchase is the one in effect on the day you made it. If we change anything material before the gala, we will email everyone holding a ticket rather than rely on this page being reread.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, United States. Any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Florida.

Contact

Vaz Preparatory School Past Student Association, Florida Inc.
Email: info@vpsalumni.org
Post: 14900 SW 30th Street, #277531, Miramar, FL 33027
EIN 20-8175233 · A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization