This year the Foundation turned an introspective eye toward the type of grants we wanted to support in the coming years.  At a spring retreat we re-committed to the Board’s decision to confine the majority of our grantmaking to support Board initiated grants.  Indeed, our most recent grants continue to reflect the breadth and depth of the Foundation Board’s interest and our ongoing commitment to organizations that our Board members feel strongly about and are deeply committed to.  We supported an organization working to build and improve education in Haiti, a classical music organization in the Hudson Valley of New York, a Mobile Market that provides fresh surplus produce from local farms in upstate New York to underserved populations and food pantries, an organization in California that provides yoga and wellness classes for low income Spanish speaking mothers, the renovation of an historic train depot in rural Maine, and the wide spread distribution of a recording of an opera that we had previously supported.

This year was also a time of transition for the Board.  It is with great sadness and affection that I share that former President and Board member, Ellis Laurimore Phillips III, passed away on October 31, 2018 from complications from diabetes.  Larry served on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for more than 30 years and served as its President for 22 years, until 2014. He was a harpsichordist and organist, composer, music critic, and dedicated philanthropist. His zest for life, escalating and contagious laugh, and passion for music and philanthropy brought joy to so many. It has been an honor to follow in his footsteps, first at Deerfield, and later as a Board member and now as President of the Board of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation. To read more about Larry’s accomplished life, please click here:  http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/obituary.aspx?n=ellis-laurimore-phillips-larry&pid=190751752&fhid=25352

Hardy G. Watts
President, Ellis L. Phillips Foundation
January 2019