The Deep River and District Community Foundation Acknowledges the Legacy of Bob French.

 

Robert (Bob) French, one of the good ones, is gone.  And he will be missed.

 

Bob was a Community Supporter and his sense of community was both local and global.  His global work with Rotary International will be memorialized elsewhere.  But this note looks at his many contributions to the Deep River and District Community Foundation (the Foundation).

 

Bob joined the Foundation as a Director in 2005 and served on the Board until 2013, as Board Chair for 3 of those years. By his second meeting he was already involved in growing the funds under management.  Starting from almost nothing, Bob worked hard for the Foundation to grow both the assets and the granting.  By the time his term had expired the Foundation had grown from 14 Funds (holding $214k) to 25 Funds holding $720k.   Even with those modest beginnings, the Foundation was still able to disburse over $83,000 to local charities.  The firm footing created by Bob and the other early directors and founders set the Foundation up for its continued success.  The Foundation now holds 28 Funds with over $2M and total disbursements to date of over $900,000.  Bob continued his interest in the Foundation and was a constant presence at the AGMs.  I’m sure that he took some well deserved pride in what the Foundation had become and the good that it did for the community.

 Bob was a visionary, always looking for the big, or bigger, picture.  He was a man of boundless enthusiasm and had a knack for infecting his fellow Directors with much of it.

 

But recently the whispers of mortality grew louder so Bob looked to see what else he could leave to his community.  And this was about the time that there was a growing movement among the community foundations for something called the  Resilient Community.  With climate change has come the increasing threat from wind, fire and rain.  And communities across this country have been affected.  So the idea has grown that communities should prepare to look after themselves, at least in the immediate aftermath of such emergencies.

So Bob and his like minded friends, John Hilborn and Elisabeth Van Wagner, approached their community foundation and started to talk.  It started with a chat on a front porch.  And then the idea grew.  Before long it had a name, the Community Emergency Fund.  Several long meetings were held with the potential donors.  Their wishes were incorporated into an Agreement.  Money began to flow and the Community Emergency Fund now holds more than $165,000 in Capital.  This was Bob’s final contribution to his local community.

 

To repeat   -  He will be missed but also dearly remembered.