Photography by Donovan Roberts WItmer
Legacy is the joy of giving. It’s creating lasting beauty. It’s seeing miracles in everyday actions. Susquehanna Style’s 2013 Stellar Seniors found their paths to legacy through community foundations— the local stewards of endowments and funds that build community strength and resilience. A pair of friends beautifying downtown York, a businessperson reaching across Harrisburg’s Susquehanna River divide, and a couple who embody servant leadership in Lancaster—all are putting their personal stamps on the legacy ideal.
Judy Blakey and Lynne Danyo
York
It’s morning stroll time at downtown York preschools, and the tables of Central Market fill with toddlers waiting for snacks. Judy Blakey points to a group of youngsters.
“That,” she says, “is why we do what we do.”
Blakey and Lynne Danyo are old friends deeply involved in York causes. In three years, they have accomplished something neither could have imagined before—raising nearly $500,000 for the Baskets of York Endowment to beautify downtown York for decades.
The Garden Club of York first hung four flower baskets in Continental Square in 1998. Today, the baskets number 122. Accordingly, the cost to buy and maintain them has blossomed to $25,000 a year. Though the blooming baskets helped beautify York, the cost depleted the Garden Club’s ability to fund other projects.
The endowment idea to generate income for baskets had been kicking around when Danyo retired as a financial adviser and dug into Garden Club involvement. Blakey, in the meantime, had served on the York County Community Foundation (yccf.org) board, learning about the foundation’s breadth as it shaped itself into a proactive force for community good.
Both women had been involved, together and separately, in other efforts—York County Library System, Children’s Home of York, Planned Parenthood. York welcomes involvement, they say.
“If you’re interested in something or think that something needs to be changed or fixed, you just poke your nose in and get scooped right up,” says Danyo.
Early in the baskets project, an angel offered a 50-cents match for every dollar raised. “After he peeled us off the floor,” as Danyo puts it, the two tackled their task methodically. The York County Community Foundation signed on as fund manager—essential in securing the trust of potential donors.
Danyo and Blakey made target lists and called to ask for meetings—just a few minutes to discuss an important project for downtown York.
Working as teammates fortified the friends in the unnerving challenge of asking for money.
“We’d make an appointment and get cheered up, so it was on to the next,” says Danyo.
“It was like, ‘If you jump off the high dive, I’ll go after you,’” says Blakey.
Their message was simple but effective.
“You make York a more beautiful place,” says Blakey. “A more inviting, happier place. Whether you’re rich or poor, you’re going to appreciate the flowers. No, it’s not money for food or clothing for the needy, but it is something that enhances the environment.”
With the endowment cushioning the baskets in permanency, and the York County Community Foundation as stewards, the Garden Club can devote its fundraising to new beautification efforts, perhaps planting native wildflowers along the Codorus Creek.
“It has been a fun experience,” Blakey says, as York’s preschoolers fill Central Market with their joyful noise. “We’ve had our ups and downs during it, life-wise.”
“Yes, but it’s been a very happy thing to work on,” adds Danyo. “We’ve worked on all these wrenching community problems, and this one has been very happy.”
Rick Woodard
Camp Hill
Rick Woodard believes in miracles—not just the turning-water-into-wine variety, but the kinds that send teens from Harrisburg’s most impoverished neighborhood to college.
“A gal raised in this area going to Harvard, that’s a miracle,” he says.
In 2005, the pastor of Woodard’s church in prosperous Camp Hill preached about reaching across the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg’s impoverished communities and bridging the longstanding divide between the suburban West Shore and urban East Shore. He thought about Allison Hill, “probably outside of Philly and Pittsburgh, the largest pocket of poverty in Pennsylvania.” From there, he founded the Allison Hill Fund, a joint funding foundation for faith-based ministries.
“One of the gifts I’ve been given from God is to go in and ask anybody for money at any particular time,” says Woodard, a realtor by trade and board member of many nonprofits by passion.
Woodard reached out to Christian Churches United, a consortium of ministries in Allison Hill. He enlisted individual and business donors behind the idea of “West Shore gifts for East Shore problems.” He enlisted administrative support from The Fund for Enhancing Communities (tfec.org), the Harrisburg area’s community foundation. Once a year, each member gets a check. So far, each has received about $25,000 total.
Faith-based ministries do more with less, Woodard says. Allison Hill Fund members provide medical and dental care, emergency shelter, food aid and job training. Families get housing. Men earn their GEDs. Teens learn to manage their anger over families decimated by drugs and crime. Mothers are asked where they want to be in five years and given the support to achieve their goals.
“So few of these women are ever asked a question like that,” says Woodard.
As a bonus, the fund has facilitated joint efforts among members, including a mentoring partnership. Individually and in tandem, the ministries uplift the lives of Allison Hill residents, especially women and children. The Allison Hill Community Ministry’s services include an after-school program that enhances learning opportunities for students from second grade to high school. Four alumni—kids from a neighborhood with a 50 percent high school graduation rate—are now in college.
Legacy means something a little different to Woodard. The needs that fund members try to ease are so great, and the resources of the ministries so stretched, that some might see their impact as minimal. Not Woodard.
“They’re definitely treading water, but for the people they are ministering to, the people they are helping, they’re making a significant difference,” he says.
It’s a matter of using his gifts and working in partnership for the greater good, he believes.
“I’m very passionate about the causes that I’m interested in,” he says. “I might not be the greatest detail-oriented person in the world, but at the same time, my heart is out there to help people accomplish what they need to accomplish.”
Jim and Sally Saxton
Lancaster
Once on a cold day, caught outside without a coat, Jim Saxton thought of all the people without coats, “especially children.” If everyone stood outside without coats, he thought, they’d be inspired to help.
“What if everyone just got a little bit involved?” he says. “It’d be life changing. Community changing.”
“We all go through this journey together,” adds Sally Saxton. ”We all have the same needs. Everyone can draw from that, something in their life that maybe they were blessed with, and they could pass that blessing on to someone else in some way. It comes back as such a gift to you.”
The Saxtons have lived in Lancaster more than 25 years, raising their four sons and one daughter there. They have also, in that time, been actively engaged as YMCA volunteers and donors. Their leadership gifts helped fund the new YMCA, built in 2009, and grow the YMCA Foundation. They maximized their support for YMCA programs and needs by establishing an endowment in the Lancaster County Community Foundation (lancfound.org).
Fitness at the Y has been integral to the lives of the Saxton family. Still, though their family name is on a YMCA gym, they don’t see the Y as only a fitness facility. When members tell stories of how YMCA community programs impacted their lives, “it’ll send a chill down your spine,” says Jim.
“When you hear people stand up and say, in a candid way, how things weren’t always so great for them and that the Y was there to help them and make a difference in the person that they are, that’s priceless,” says Jim. “If this organization can do that, think about the ripple effect.”
“They are the backbone of the Y,” agrees Sally. “Those are the unsung heroes.”
The Saxtons are also passionate about another recent venture—a challenge grant toward pastoral care for Lancaster General Hospital’s cancer patients. When they were approached about a program to train chaplains in the special needs of cancer patients and their families, the Saxtons immediately recognized the need because Jim’s parents had both recently died of cancer.
“What a difference it makes that they can offer so much comfort,” says Sally. “Faith is something we can’t put any kind of measurement on.”
“Faith trumps fear,” agrees Jim.
To the Saxtons, legacy is a paying forward for generations to come.
“It grows on you,” Jim says. “It gives you this feeling, this satisfying feeling that you’re meeting a need and helping. It feels great.”
“It’s an ongoing joy, which is so nice,” says Sally. “You always can think about the good that it will do forever, even long after you’re gone, and that brings joy to your heart.”
