Philanthropy
In order to coordinate his charitable giving, the 36-year-old Alfond organized the first private foundation in the state of Maine, the Harold Alfond Foundation. Between 1950 and 2003, the foundation has contributed more than $100 million to charitable causes, and as of 2008 has over $106 million in assets.
He has donated money to various colleges to help improve their sports facilities; for example, the Alfond Arena and Alfond Stadium at the University of Maine, the Harold and Ted Alfond Sports Center at Rollins College, and the Alfond Center at Saint Joseph's College of Maine. In December 2003, five years after his $1.65 million donation for the athletic and recreation center, Alfond contributed $1 million to St. Joseph's towards the $10 million needed to build Alfond Hall, the college's primary academic hall.
In 2007, having lived with cancer for 17 years, Alfond donated $7 million to a cancer care center at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta. The center is named the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care.
The Alfond Scholarship Foundation introduced the "Harold Alfond College Challenge" in January 2009. Through the program, a $500 grant is given to every Maine resident who enrolls before their first birthday; the money is intended to help Maine families plan for education beyond high school. As of July 2010, 5,500 babies have been enrolled in the program.
Read more about this topic: Harold Alfond
Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“... the hey-day of a woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)