1999 Appreciation Reception:

Appreciation Reception Honors Founding Benefactors' Vision and Legacy!

Jim Gerard, Howard Russell and Peg Mundstock

At a reception to appreciate the parents of its founding benefactors, Samara Foundation acknowledged the enduring legacy to Vermont's GLBT communities created by the special contributions of Robert Mundstock and Douglas Howe to Samara Foundation's beginnings. Bill Lippert, one of Samara's two founding incorporators and its current Executive Director, talked about how Mundstock's desire to give was the catalyst for incorporating the foundation, and of Howe's extraordinary vision and generosity in funding the fledgling foundation.

Mundstock, a close friend of Lippert, and living with AIDS, challenged Lippert to "stop talking about creating a Vermont GLBT foundation" and instead "do something about it, or I will not be able to leave you anything!" It was Mundstock's blunt words of challenge and encouragement, in the face of his own imminent death, that motivated Lippert and David Curtis to incorporate the foundation in 1992. Mundstock died some months later, and through a bequest in his will became the first person to contribute to the newly formed Vermont GLBT foundation.

Earlier, Mundstock, an artist and activist, had also planted the seed for the foundation's future name as "Samara Foundation" when he offered the work "samara" as "a word I have always liked for its symbolic meaning of 'planting seeds and growth' and its connection to the landscape of Vermont." "Use it to name a project someday," Mundstock urged.

Douglas Howe gave the foundation his own powerful boost of life, when he approached Howard Russell and told him that, upon his own death, he wanted to have the resources of his estate, and that of his partner, Frank Shivers, who predeceased him, to support Vermont's gay and lesbian community. Russell directed Howe to Lippert and the newly formed Vermont GLBT foundation. While incorporated at the urging of Mundstock, the foundation was in reality still more of an idea and a vision, not an operating organization. Nevertheless, Howe made the incredibly generous and visionary offer of bequeathing his estate to the foundation to benefit the Vermont GLBT community.

"Our work in bringing Samara Foundation to full life is fulfillment of the faith Doug placed in us. Our work today honors his vision of what the foundation could do, and especially for young gay people in our communities," Lippert reflected.

"It is of great satisfaction to our family that Douglas' wishes have been fulfilled. Douglas did not want any other young gay person ever again to have to go through what he did," commented his mother, Theo Howe.

"Honoring Bob's mother, Peg Mundstock, and Theo and Harry Howe, the parents of Doug Howe, is the least that we can do to show the deep appreciation of Samara Foundation, on behalf of Vermont's GLBT communities, for the gifts from these parents' sons. Having lost their sons to AIDS, these families should know of the incredible and permanent legacy that their sons have left behind. Each, with his own unique contributions, made visionary gifts. Between them they launched Vermont's GLBT community foundation, Samara Foundation of Vermont," said Lippert.

"The vision and generosity of our founding benefactors continue to inspire other members of our communities to sustain and nourish the foundation. They have left a permanent legacy for our communities. We are all inspired and deeply grateful."