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DAR Community Service Awards luncheon |
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Cleve Fuessenich and Martha Phillips were honored on Sunday, November 15th for their service to the community by the Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
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| Martha Phillips Creative, organized, intelligent, goal-oriented, persevering, generous, witty, charming….a dedicated steward, a voice of altruism, an unsung hero with reassuring empathy, and a friend. These are all adjectives and nouns her friends and colleagues used in letters to support Martha’s nomination for the DAR Community Service Award. Obviously, Martha is making a difference in her community and among the other volunteers who witness her work. As a volunteer, Martha is a member of the Women’s Forum where she chaired the Program Committee for three years and was the President for two. She is also on the board of the Connecticut Junior Republic where she serves on the Education, Development, and Investment committee as well as being a member of the Litchfield Aid to the CJR for the past 3 years. She is a vice president of the Litchfield Historical Society where she serves on several committees, and is also the President of the Litchfield Garden club. In addition, and probably her primary and most visible local commitment, Martha joined the capital campaign for the Litchfield Meetinghouse to help raise funds for the huge structural project that was completed recently. She researched sources of grant money, wrote a proposal, and was able to secure a federal grant to help the historic preservation of a religious institution. In the basement of that same building, Martha, and several church members created a permanent used book store whose proceeds go to the charitable missions of the church. The store accepts books donated by the community, resells them, maintains a large Amazon online book selling operation, and donates duplicates to the state prison in Somers, libraries, children’s reading programs, and other nonprofit organizations. In a larger sense, Martha also serves on several state boards such as the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters and the Endangered Lands Coalition. Thank you Martha, for all you do. The Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter of the DAR is honored to award you the 2009 Community Service Award. |
Cleve Fuessenich It is my honor and privilege to share with you the information I have learned about this man over the last several months. He is a true community servant and the DAR is pleased to be able to award him this honor today. Now, let me tell you a bit about him. First, he is a busy man between his job as a local real estate agent who also serves as a pro bono real estate appraiser to clients of modest means, only asking in return for a contribution to a charity of the client’s choice, and as a friend to many local organizations. Cleve has been an advocate for many as the Director of the Litchfield Housing Trust where he helps to provide the community with much needed affordable housing, and the Board of Assessment Appeals where he stepped in to serve as the chairman in a revaluation year. His colleagues describe him as a person who has an ability to reconcile an irreconcilable conflict, a fine, honest, kind, and dependable person who would give you the shirt off his back, an effective, responsible, and cooperative member of any group he serves, a person with impeccable character, and a positive volunteer who proposes imaginative solutions to challenging questions. Some of the other organizations he serves are the Oliver Wolcott Library, the Litchfield Preservation Trust, the Seherr-Thoss Charitable Trust, the Conservation Commission, and the Economic Development Commission. He is a private person who does not boast of his accomplishments or his responsibilities, so it is important that groups such as ours do that for him. We would like to commend Cleve for the characteristics his colleagues and fellow volunteers recognize in his work and they are: his fine sense of ethics, his advocating skills, and his fair treatment of others, his judgment, his dedication, and his devotion to everything he does. Finally, as one person mentioned, If Cleve were not a resident of Litchfield, our community would be a far different place. Cleve, The Mary Floyd Tallmadge Chapter of the DAR would like to present you with the award for Community Service Volunteer of the Year. Congratulations. |
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