EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE
A Million Thanks
June 2008
John Haynes, Executive Director and CEO
In This Section
Dear Friends,
If you're reading this you probably know by now that PACE announced $7 million in new gifts at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors on June 10th. Our Board Vice Chair, Janine Florence, and her husband, Alex, and parents, Lavern and the late Eleanor Fortin, made an additional gift of $1 million. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made a gift of $6 million. These are investments that will have a profound effect on both the Campaign For PACE and on the practical work of design and construction. As you can imagine, we are deeply grateful and thrilled at the possibilities these gifts open up for us.
But it's really the people who were in the room when these announcements were made that I want to focus on here, the volunteers who've carried PACE so far already, fueled by hope and dedication and a fierce belief in our vision of a good community made great. I feel as though I've got seven million thank-yous available and I'd like to spend them right away.
Thank you, first to our magnificent Donors. A million thanks, as they say. Gifts of all sizes have positioned this Campaign for success, and every one of them is precious – each an expression of faith in the project, belief in our mission, and a passion for the arts.
Our Board of Directors now boasts 31 of the Eastside's most accomplished citizens, among whom 10 are members of the original 13 founders of PACE, many of whom have worked for 20 years or more to realize the dream of a performing arts center in Bellevue. A million thanks to them, too, for their personal generosity, their hard work, and their wisdom.
Another million thanks goes to our Board Leadership, which has been nothing short of fantastic. The current officers – Chair, Peter Horvitz; Vice Chairs, Janine Florence and Carl Behnke; Treasurer, Dennis Conrad; and Secretary, Kathy Surace-Smith – are each serving a second, consecutive year on the Executive Committee. Maxine Barnard continues to serve as our Building Committee Chair and Sally Gray is stepping in to relieve Sally Jarvis at the helm of our Governance and Nominating Committee.
And yet another seven-figure thank-you is due our Campaign For PACE Co-Chairs, Betty and Kemper Freeman and Karen and Chuck Lytle, whose leadership is the sparkplug of our momentum. They are joined on the Campaign Cabinet by Randy Talbot, chairing the Corporate Division, Ann and Tom Gores, chairing the Community Campaign, and Brad Smith, taking over for Skip Rowley, who has chaired the Public Sector Committee for the past three years.
The 44 women of the Act One Guild are hard at work on their fifth Candlelight Dinner, having raised more than $750,000 for the Campaign already. (Saturday, November 1, 2008. Be there!!) Their efforts so far have secured our Steinway Concert Grand Pianos and the theatre's Grand Drape. The proceeds from this year's event will take the Act One Guild over the $1 million mark and will begin to build our permanent operating endowment. A million thanks to them, as well!
Still, I have another million thank-yous to share among the wonderful volunteers of the newlyformed Act Two Guild, our Ambassadors For PACE, the many Hosts of Parties For PACE, and all of our advisors and supporters in the community who lend their hearts and smarts to this quest.
Finally, we all owe a million thanks to someone who cannot be here to help us celebrate this moment or share in future successes. The founding Executive Director of PACE, Dick Collins, died in May, depriving PACE of one of its wisest and most ardent champions, and the Pacific Northwest of one of its most effective nonprofit executives. Whatever else we may do to make PACE grow, we will always remember Dick as the one who planted the seeds.
Warm regards,
