It was a blue-blazer occasion when Dan Dwyer and James Montanari invited friends and neighbors to their house in Salisbury to learn more about the Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut, which supports worthy causes in 20 smalls towns and cities in the foothills of the Berkshires. With an endowment of about $15 million, the foundation annually awards some $900,000 in grants and scholarships and helps donors to set up targeted philanthropic funds that the Foundation manages and administers for them. In these tough times, supporting one's neighbors has never been more necessary or worthwhile.
Host Dan Dwyer, a member of of the foundation's board, with fellow board member William Giles Harding; Sandra and Jim Thibault, who serves on the foundation's investment committee.
Co-host Jim Montanari with neighbors Inge Heckel and Jeff Hamlin, production manager of Lincoln Center Theater.
Foundation board member Fred Petersen with Cornwall Consolidated School's Patty Rovezzi, whose husband, Guy, is the foundation's president; political activist and environmentalist Ruth Skovron, who founded the The Northwestern Connecticut Regional Planning Collaborative, with Daphne Hurford.
Fritz and Lee Link, a director of the Lily Auchincloss Foundation.
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
