2022 PHAA Graduation Ceremony

Monday June 6

In 2020 and 2021 we held our graduation ceremony virtually. This year we will hold it in-person at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle on Monday, June 6. The ceremony will start with a sit-down supper at 5:30pm in the Bongiorno Center's Dining Room. The ceremony itself will begin in its Pennsylvania Room at 7pm. After the ceremony, there will be accommodations available for people who wish to stay overnight in the center's hotel rooms.

The Bongiorno Center is centrally located for Pennsylvania: about 30 minutes from Harrisburg, 2 hours from Philadelphia and 3 hours from Pittsburgh. You can register by paying in our online store. There are two alternative options:

Dinner plus Ceremony. The cost is $25 per person. [Click here to post your medically necessary dietary restrictions.]
Ceremony only. The cost is $5 per person.

All students who participate will have to post a 50-100 word biography of themselves by June 1 for inclusion in the ceremony program. Optional: You can perform a 5 minute performance or give a 5 minute speech at the ceremony. Normally, every graduate who offers to perform or give a speech is included in the program. Click here to post your biography and info about your optional performance or speech by June 1. Last year's virtual ceremony was a great success. You can watch it on YouTube to see approximately how this year's ceremony will be organized.

Caps and gowns. Any color of cap and gown is OK for the ceremony. (We will have a variety of colors to represent the diversity of homeschooling.) We will have a few extra at the ceremony. If you wish, you can obtain free gowns from Claudia Joye (ctjoye@gmail.com, 610-524-0296). She gives them away free to PHAA grads if you want to travel to her home in Exton. She also mails them out for $10 shipping and handling.)

Our Commencement speaker: Rep. Barb Gleim lives near Carlisle. She and her husband Tracy have three grown children – Kaitlin, Emily and Daniel. Prior to her election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2018, she served as the director of operations and then director of business development at John W. Gleim Jr. Inc. Excavating. She is the co-owner and operator of Hayman Farms, the family farm that she and her husband continue to work growing hay and raising Hereford beef. She has been an extremely active leader in her community with a focus on education and is now chair of the the Subcommittee on Basic Education. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administration in Food and Agribusiness from Delaware Valley University.

Here's a map of the Bongiorno Conference Center. The dinner and ceremony are in the same building, shown on the map as the Dining Center. The address of the center is 430 Union Hall Rd., Carlisle PA 17013.

Note: Deadline for registration for the ceremony is June 1. (Reservations for the dinner could get cut off before that.) Don't delay. Register now!