stories of giving

Bill and Mary Wasserman feel passionate that strong arts and culture are critical to enhancing and sustaining a vibrant lifestyle and economic opportunity in Essex County, today and for the future.

The Pelican Intervention Fund, founded in 2015 by Newburyport residents Kim and Steven Keene and Elizabeth McCarthy, is a grassroots organization created to help men and women struggling with addiction – most notably heroin addiction. An epidemic nearly everywhere, Essex County has been particularly hard hit by the opioid crisis. According to ECCF’s Impact Essex County data, admissions to drug treatment programs for heroin addiction in Essex County have surged 60 percent since 2005.

Linda and Jurg Siegenthaler have had a longtime passion for the city of Lawrence. “When I left the city, it was struggling,” said Linda, who grew up in the Tower Hill neighborhood. “Now there’s a lot of effort to bring it back and I want to be a part of that.”

On September 18, 2009, Mayor Michael Sullivan partnered with the Charles C. Pringle Foundation to establish a fund at ECCF to provide a mechanism that could respond rapidly to urgent needs during times of emergency.

In 1868, Civil War veteran H.K. Webster founded a small feed grain operation in Lawrence. In the 1980s, under the leadership of H.K.’s great-grandsons Dean and King Webster, the company reached its zenith as a manufacturer and distributor of Blue Seal Feeds in the Northeast.