In the past two years, the foundation has created the Generous Acts Fund and Adirondack Gives to help raise money for local causes.

The Generous Acts Fund is a flexible and perpetual fund that provides financial support to unmet current needs and invests its funds to address unmet future needs. It has awarded $165,000 in grants from its creation to the end of June 2016.

Adirondack Gives is the foundation’s crowdfunding website that lets users create and donate to online campaigns. It has been used to raise almost $200,000 since being created in 2014.

While the foundation staff have been instrumental in gathering funds, investing charitable assets and assisting organizations that strengthen the community, it would not be able to contribute all it does without generous donors.

Upper Saranac Foundation volunteers hand-harvest milfoil from Fish Creek Pond partly funded through an Adirondack Gives Campaign. (Photo provided by Guy Middleton)

Graphic designer Kathy Ford, of Saranac Lake, has continuously donated time, energy and finances to the community as she feels it’s a central part of being a community member, she said. Through volunteering at organizations and donating through Adirondack Gives, she has supported many causes with specific interests in education and the arts.

“I like to support those who may be less fortunate than we are, whether it be through the food pantry or if there are special needs for something in the community, possibly through Adirondack Gives,” Ford said. “Certainly I’m passionate about anything that might help the well-being of the community or people who may not be as fortunate as others are. If I could help them out a little bit, great. If I had tons of money, I’d be giving it to everybody, but I don’t.”

Ford said she was influenced to give back by her mother, who volunteered at a local hospital. When Ford was younger, she worked as a candy striper and at St. Jude’s Thrift Shop.

“I guess it’s the way I grew up: Help those who need help and if you can’t financially, then you give up your own time physically,” she said. “And if you can’t do that, you give some money, but hopefully you can do a little bit of both.”

Ford has donated to recent causes at Pendragon Theatre, the Saranac Lake Central School District and local hospices. She said she frequently scans Adirondack Gives on its website and on social media to find campaigns that interest her.

Jess Collier, of Saranac Lake, is a regular donor through the Adirondack Gives website. (Enterprise photo — Kelly Carroll)

“It’s important, I think, especially in a small community like Saranac Lake,” she said. “If we all kind of help each other, it makes a difference and it makes us feel better as neighbors. I care about this community. I care about the non-profits. I care about people who might need something or an organization that’s thriving here, and they thrive because people like me and others will care and help them. If nobody does it, they’ll fall under and have nothing. So it’s kind of a give it back and move it forward for future generations.”

Jess Collier, a public relations professional who lives in Saranac Lake, said she also frequents social media and uses the Adirondack Gives platform to find causes and make donations.

“I’m not too good at having an overall strategy,” Collier said. “I just kind of see things on social media mostly, or every once in a while I’ll go to the website and see what funds are available and just make a contribution. I tend to make smaller contributions because I don’t make a lot of money, but if it’s something that I see that I’m interested in, then I’ll go and check it out, learn more and donate to it usually.”

Collier said when donating, she likes to focus on supporting the arts as well as diversity initiatives in the community. She said she grew up singing and playing instruments and received one of her degrees in music and theater. As for diversity causes, she said she has just started exploring the issue but she finds it to be increasingly important.

“I work at the (Regional Office for Sustainable Tourism), and we’ve been talking about it a lot at work, and our group supports the Adirondack Diversity Council,” she said. “It’s made me more aware of how much more we need to have focus on making sure it’s a welcome place for diversity, financially and just because we’re humans and we want to be welcoming to other humans.”

Kathy Ford, of Saranac Lake, is a regular donor through the Adirondack Gives website. (Enterprise photo — Kelly Carroll)

Collier said the Adirondack Gives platform has been helpful because it allows users to donate small amounts to smaller causes, where an impact can actually be seen.

“I definitely try to make sure that I’m giving to things that are smaller and will have an impact if I’m actually spending a portion of my paycheck on it,” she said.

“I know there’s a lot of good causes around here that just need financial support, that they can’t do what they do without the community backing them,” she added. “But I think it’s also good for community morale, people knowing that their neighbors have their back.”

Richard Kroes, the volunteer co-chairman of the Generous Acts Fund, is another avid donor. He is particularly passionate about supporting education and athletics but said there are many needs that could use the support.

“In the region in general, I think we’re very lucky that we have strong communities, and it’s always very heartening to see, when there is a pressing need, how people rally together,” he said. “It’s more than just the donations; it’s the caring and support people give.

Lake Placid Central School District students attend a field trip at the Math Museum in New York City funded through the district’s Educational Opportunities Fund. (Photo provided by Roger Catania)

“I support the Generous Acts fund really because I believe the Adirondack Foundation staff is really informed as to what the greatest needs are,” he said. “So I certainly have personal charities that I like to support that I’m very aware of but I think there are opportunities that I don’t know about, that my charitable contribution can sort of have maximum effect. And they know that better than I do, so I like the fact that they have knowledge. And I like the fact that it’s perpetual, so what I invest now is going to support the region for generations to come.”

Sunita Halasz, of Saranac Lake, has also made several financial donations through the foundation and through Adirondack Gives. She said she has always felt her life has been the work of the generous acts of others, and therefore, her family gives back to many causes through financial support and volunteer work, including food pantries, historic preservation organizations, scientific research, arts organizations, libraries, health and emergency services, museums and booster groups.

“Our family has always felt that we are responsible for the vibrancy of our community and the Adirondacks, and even the world,” she said. “When you make a donation, it’s like a positive expression of faith for a bright future and for the common good of all people. And when you’re a citizen of the Park, which I like to call a ‘6-million acre neighborhood,’ you can clearly see that one individual’s actions can make a huge impact on the quality of life for the rest of us.”

Halasz said she feels energized by seeing the benefits of her donations.

“We’ve seen buildings built, like Dewey Mountain lodge, and historic structures preserved, and Saranac Lake children grow up and go out into the world with confidence and success,” she said. “We feel like we’ve gotten to be a part of fascinating research showing just how important this tiny Park is to the ecological health of the entire planet. Just by acting on the local level with small donations and volunteerism, we see global ripple effects, and that feels very good.

“When I have a hand in helping to lift up others, I feel uplifted,” she said. “Giving helps me focus my mind to the larger world and the connectedness of all people. Though I give without any thought of personal gain, I nonetheless gain so much from giving, sharing, connecting and caring.”

Many organizations that focus on immediate needs in education, culture, human well-being, environment and community vitality have been helped by the Adirondack Foundation and its donors. Mercy Care for the Adirondacks, established in 2007 after the Catholic Sisters of Mercy got out of the nursing home business in Tupper Lake and Lake Placid, is one of the groups to receive grant money from the foundation’s Generous Acts Fund. The organization exists to enhance the lives of elders living in the community.

“The unique thing about Mercy Care is that we are funded solely by charitable contributions and grants,” Executive Director Donna Beal said. “We receive no reimbursement for our services. Our services are free of charge to those that we serve. So it really is the community itself that is supporting Mercy Care’s work to help their elder neighbors.”

Beal said the foundation’s grant money has helped the organization continue to run its three programs: Friendship Volunteers, Parish Nurses, and advocacy and education.

“Adirondack Foundation has been a real leader in our community in identifying the underlying needs of people that live here,” she said.

The need for elder care will continue to increase, Beal said, making volunteer work and financial support more important.

“We know by 2030, nearly one-third of the population in Essex County is going to be over the age of 65,” she said. “That is huge, and it is going to have a tremendous impact on all different parts of our society, including education, because we’ll probably have schools with declining enrollment. Elders will need services, community-based services. The government resources will be diminishing, so more and more people will rely on organizations like Mercy Care and other charitable organizations to help people in need.”

The Upper Saranac Foundation has received support from the foundation and donors as well through Adirondack Gives, lake manager Guy Middleton said. The organization, established in 1990, seeks to preserve and protect the environmental quality of Upper Saranac Lake and its watershed for recreation and tourism.

“The Upper Saranac Foundation has a long history of very generous donors that primarily are shore owners,” Middleton said. “What originated was to purchase and rebuild the dam, which was kind of the original idea of the foundation, and that led into water quality and then, more recently, invasive species. For invasive species, Upper Saranac Lake is one of the lead lakes in managing invasive species.”

The foundation decided to start an Adirondack Gives campaign in July, which ran to September, to expand its successful hand-harvesting of milfoil from the upper lake into the Fish Creek Campground area.

“(The campground) is a tributary into the upper lake and also a source of invasive species, not only flowing from Fish Creek into the upper lake but also a source of invasive species as a hub or a vector for other lakes in the Adirondack region,” Middleton said. “We didn’t want to depend solely on the shore owners on the upper lake, so with this expansion of the harvesting, we chose to go through Adirondack Foundation to broaden our donor base.”

Middleton said the organization was able to harvest 9-and-a-half tons of milfoil, in part due to the crowdfunding campaign.

The Lake Placid Central School District was also helped by the foundation for its Educational Opportunity Fund.

The fund, which was created about a year ago, provides opportunities for children in the school district to support their education, Superintendent Roger Catania said. He said the two key parts of the fund’s mission are excellence and opportunity. The fund collects donations to provide funds to innovative ideas that can enhance students’ educational experiences as well as support students furthering their education who otherwise might not have the opportunity.

Through the fund, the school has been able to finance several different projects, including a class field trip to the Math Museum in New York City, hokki stools for a second-grade class to help them with their ability to pay attention, donations of books and financial support for the backpack program.

“We know that public schooling can make a tremendous difference in the lives of kids and in the importance of a community like ours,” he said “I think people want very much to provide a kind of boost to kids who might not get it as well as to a school that sometimes has to run on the margins of state funding.”

He said the Adirondack Foundation has provided the fund with a way to raise money.

“The Adirondack Foundation is an absolutely wonderful organization that supports not just people in Lake Placid but widespread throughout the Adirondacks,” Catania said. “They do lots of good work, and they promote lots of great ideas.”