When Farmington businessman Mark Wilson and his wife Wendy created a foundation in 2000, their goal was to help children in need. Little did they know that goal would include staging rock concerts at a pro golf tournament.
But that’s just what’s ahead under a partnership between the Wilsons’ REACH Foundation and the Travelers Championship.
Wilson is an entrepreneur whose interests run from residential real estate and development to an internet technology business and Crazy Bruce’s Liquor Stores.
The REACH Foundation works to help children in need — physically, socially and financially — in Connecticut and in other places the Wilsons call work and home. REACH contributed $1.5 million for the construction of the Wilson-Gray North Hartford YMCA Youth and Family Center in Hartford’s North End in 2009. They’ve donated more than $300,000 to St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, as well as $350,000 to establish a library in Kiowa, Oklahoma. They’ve also provided scholarships to more than 40 high school graduates, and have made sizeable contributions to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Connecticut and the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut.
And in June, they are bringing rock legends Eddie Money and Huey Lewis and the News to Cromwell for benefit concerts June 22 and 25 respectively. The concerts will be held in the Subway Fun Zone in the middle of the course immediately after play concludes for the day.
“Music has a way of delivering messages to people that often times the
spoken or written word cannot,” said Mark Wilson, the foundation’s president. “It is my hope that through this partnership with the Travelers Championship, we can utilize this concert series to deliver the message of children’s needs while providing exciting post-play entertainment.”
For more information, visit www.reachmusicfestival.com.
Ballet on tour
The Connecticut Ballet’s 30th anniversary season takes the show on the road when its Summer Dance Caravan holds a preview performance June 25 in Greenwich. The caravan stops in Litchfield, Westport, Danbury, New London, Yonkers and Middletown before concluding with a show at the Riverfront Recapture in Hartford Aug. 13.
Tickets for the ballet’s October performances of The Sleeping Beauty go on sale July 15. The company also will stage the Nutcracker Dec. 10-24 before its 30th anniversary Razzle Dazzle Gala April 21 at the Belding Theater at The Bushnell in Hartford.
Details are available at www. Connecticutballet.com
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In brief
• Japan is still struggling to recover from this spring’s tsunami and nuclear accident but the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York was so concerned about deadly tornadoes sweeping the U.S. midlands that it presented a check for $100,000 to AmeriCares, in support of the efforts by the Stamford-based nonprofit global health and disaster relief organization in its mission to Joplin, Missouri.
• Operation Fuel recently raised over $16,000 from its second annual Burn Calories for Fuel 5K at the Metropolitan Learning Center in Bloomfield. More than 250 runners and walkers participated in the road race that was held to raise awareness of the home energy affordability crisis that affects one out of every five Connecticut households.
• Connecticut Light & Power and Yankee Gas are supporting a new, peer-based leadership program for minority school principals and superintendents across the state with a grant of $18,500. Twenty-four African-American and Hispanic principals will participate in four distinct Forum Educational Leadership Programs to be held at the Berlin campus of CL&P and Yankee Gas through July.
TOP EMPLOYEE HONORED
Sharon Robinson, director of care coordination for Central Connecticut Senior Health Services, received the Employee of the Year Award from the Connecticut Association of Not for Profit Providers for the Aging. She has been with Senior Health Services for more than 15 years and has assisted in the growth and development of the Connecticut Center for Healthy Aging. Pictured are, from left, Mag Morelli, association president; Molly Savard, executive director of Bradley Home and Pavilion; Robinson; Patricia Walden, vice president of Central Connecticut Senior Health Services; and Stephen McPherson, chair of the association’s Board of Directors.
