Three Elected to Hampton Roads Community Foundation Board

Three community leaders were elected in June 2015 to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation board of directors. They are Susan R. Colpitts of Norfolk, Sharon S. Goodwyn of Chesapeake and Suzanne Puryear of Norfolk.
Susan Colpitts is founder and chief of client experience

Susan Colpitts

at Signature Family Wealth Advisors. She is a trustee of Eastern Virginia Medical School Foundation and serves on the boards of the United Way of South Hampton Roads and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. She is a member of the Planned Giving Advisory Board at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in accounting with a concentration in taxation.

Sharon Goodwyn

Sharon Goodwyn is a member of Hunton & Williams LLP. She is board secretary for the St. Mary's Home and serves on the Eastern Virginia Medical School board of visitors. She also serves on the boards of the United Way of South Hampton Roads Foundation and Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and is a trustee of the University of Virginia Law School Foundation. She is a member of the  University of Virginia Tidewater Jefferson Scholars Selection Committee and the Harvard University Schools Committee. She earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in economics and a J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.  

Suzanne Puryear, president of of The Planning

Suzanne Puryear

Council, chairs the Norfolk Interagency Consortium for At-Risk Children and Youth board. She is Tidewater Pastoral Counseling board vice chair and Westminster-Canterbury on Chesapeake Bay board secretary. She serves on the boards of the Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement, Together We Can Foundation and YMCA of South Hampton Roads. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in public administration from Old Dominion University.
 

Click here for a list of all 17 Hampton Roads Community Foundation board members.

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $210 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. ) 

John Stewart: Passionate About the River

John Stewart

Hampton Roads Community Foundation donors are passionate people. Among them is John Stewart of Norfolk, a retired librarian who loves the Lafayette River. 

He is restoring its wetlands and teaching others to do the same. John, a member of the Friends of Norfolk's Environment and the Lafayette Wetlands Partnership, has arranged for a bequest to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation for a field-of-interest fund to forever help our region's environment.

Take a moment to enjoy this video of John and other wetlands volunteers and experience the peacefulness of the river he loves so much. You will be glad you did. 

Hope House Gives Kristina Sherman a Great Life

What is it like to be a young person living in a nursing home? Kristina Sherman will tell you it is "H. E. Double hockey sticks." 

Sherman, 29, once lived in a nursing home after enduring two heart transplants, a stroke and oxygen deprivation. Although the Norfolk resident  is legally blind and has mobility issues, she now lives in her own apartment thanks to the Hope House Foundation.

Take 2 minutes and 55 seconds to watch this video about Kristina and you will be glad you did. In it you will get a glimpse into the remarkable life she is leading because of help from Hope House.

Hope House has received Hampton Roads Community Foundation grants to help buy 13 apartment complexes for clients and other community members. Their residents include the 125 adults with disabilities Hope House staff members help live fulfilling lives surrounded by all kinds of neighbors.The community foundation also manages Hope House's endowment.

"Inclusion is a very basic citizen desire," says Lynne Seagle, Hope House executive director. The organization she leads is renowned nationally for making sure citizens with disabilities are part of a broader community.



(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. ) 

Three Blocks to Home

It's hard to be homeless, and it's wonderful to have a home as Robert Johnson will tell you. 

This video called 3 Blocks to Home shows what good things are happening in southeastern Virginia for homeless people because philanthropy and nonprofits work together. 

 Portsmouth Volunteers for the Homeless and Virginia Supportive Housing teamed up with the Hampton Roads Community Foundation so Robert no longer has to live under an interstate highway bridge in Portsmouth, Virginia. Take a look at what life is like for him now.

Community Foundations All Needs Fans Like the Rosenbachs

Kurt and Rose Rosenbach love their community.

Every nonprofit should be so lucky as to have advocates like accountant Kurt Rosenbach and his wife Rose. These long-time Norfolk, Virginia residents love their community and are ambassadors for the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. We thank them for being part of our community foundation family

For 20 years Kurt served on our board of directors. Although he left that position in 2006 he remains involved in many ways. He serves on our Audit and Finance Committee and comes with Rose to many community foundation events. Both the Rosenbachs are members of our Legacy Society for Hampton Roads, which celebrates people who have made arrangements for a future bequest.

Kurt, whose career was spent in retail, retired in 2009 as senior vice president of Hayne's Furniture in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He joined the Haynes team after serving as chairman of the board of Norfolk-based Rices Nachmans department store chain. Throughout his career he was always involved in community organizations including the Downtown Norfolk Council where he was its first board chair.

Until last year Kurt presided over the foundation at Ohef Sholom Temple in Norfolk. He also is active with the Tidewater Jewish Foundation.

For Kurt "the foundation world is so important. Without foundations and their financial support many organizations could not fulfill their missions."

It is particularly gratifying when professionals like Kurt, an accountant, become champions for endowment building through foundations.

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. ) 

This Chesapeake Piano Would make E.K. Sloane Happy

Edward Knapp Sloane, best known as E.K., was a Norfolk, Virginia engineer who loved piano music but did not play the instrument. His bequest plans entrusted the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to forever buy pianos in his name. E.K. passes away in 1996

E.K. Sloane

and since then we have provided more than $3.2 million in grants to 60+ organizations -- all for pianos.

Below is an uplifting column that would warm E.K.'s heart. It is written by Toney L. McNair Jr., who heads the choral music department at Indian River Middle School in Chesapeake, which recently  received a Sloane piano. 

This is from the Chesapeake Clipper on March 1, 2015. The Clipper is a community section focused on Chesapeake Virginia that is part of The Virginian-Pilot newspaper.

PURSUIT OF A NEW PIANO HIT ALL RIGHT NOTES  

By  Toney L. McNair Jr. guest column  

     WITH LIMITED funding and resources available for education, teachers are often challenged with providing a quality educational environment to inspire their students. For example, 345 of the 760 students at Indian River Middle School are enrolled in chorus, band or orchestra. Our music program is part of the fabric that makes our school unique. 

   That is why, after our spring concert in May 2014, I decided our students needed a new piano. We had been rolling our old Korg piano back and forth from the chorus room to the auditorium for the past 15 or more years. It was barely holding on to its dolly and the keys were just screaming, “One more note, really?” 

   Our students deserved better, and it was time to put the kids first and not be limited by the resources we didn’t have. 

   After several conversations with my school’s principal, I was given the approval to look for a new piano. But there was a caveat: my students and I would have to raise the money ourselves with the hope of receiving matching funds from what was already a limited school budget. That would be a great feat because I typically used our fundraising efforts to purchase choir uniforms each year. To make the effort even more challenging, a new principal was assigned to our school at the end of June, just as I had vigorously begun my pursuit of a new instrument. 

   Thinking I had to start over getting approval to pursue my quest, I met with Principal Terre Werts. After greeting me, her next words were, “So, I understand that we need a new piano ... let’s make it happen!” Well, that was all I needed and wanted to hear.    

   As we continued to talk, we decided to seek advice from Chesapeake schools supervisor of music Craig Robertson. Not long after making contact with Mr. Robertson, he informed me of a funding source known as the E. K. Sloane Fund, which is managed by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. 

   This organization, I was told, provides funds to school districts in need of pianos. Amazing! I could not believe what I was hearing. I reviewed the grant application, and my school’s administration enthusiastically encouraged me to submit it. 

  

 With my choral winter concert just a couple of months away, my hope was that we would receive grant approval in time for our performance. I wanted a more professional sounding instrument accompanying us. One week before our concert, we were awarded a grant for $9,687 from the Sloane Fund. Thanks to my school administration working feverishly with the grant source, the Piano  and Organ Warehouse and Thomas Brothers Moving Company, I was able to serenade our staff and students on our new baby grand Yamaha piano – all in time for our Winter Holiday Concert. We could hardly contain ourselves. 

   What started as a small idea became the talk of our community. Our kids deserve the best, and all of us have learned a very valuable lesson: determination can be the vehicle for reaching your destination. 

   This is truly what can happen when we work together. “Put Kids First!” 

   The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is southeastern Virginia’s largest grant and scholarship provider. Since its founding in 1950, the regional community foundation and its donors have provided nearly $200 million in grants and scholarships to improve life in southeastern Virginia. 

  Toney L. McNair Jr., D. Min., is department chair and choral music teacher at Indian River Middle School.     

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. ) 

We are sad for the loss of loving mother, nurse and philanthropist Rita Paganelli Horvatic on February 11, 2015 in Virginia Beach. 

But we are glad to know the Hampton Roads Community Foundation brought her peace and happiness. In 2013  she entrusted us with forever awarding scholarships in the memory of her beloved son Tommy. 

Tommy passed away in 1986 at age 17 at the start of his senior year at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach. The Tommy Horvatic Memorial Scholarship Fund at the community foundation continues the work Rita and her late husband Tom started the year after Tommy passed away -- awarding scholarships in his name to students at his alma mater. We appreciate memorial gifts for Rita coming to Tommy's fund to help more students.

Here is a short 2013 video about Tommy that features his mom and sister. 

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. )