2018 Executive Director's Letter: Refugees & Immigrants
George Gund
I love words and language but I hate when they become casualties of the political combat that is our daily reality.
Words, like the democratic norms that enable our society to struggle toward progress, can fall victim to totalitarian doublespeak and unchallenged lies. Perhaps George Orwell jumped the gun when he put the death of truth in 1984. We are living through frightening times today.
The incomparable and recently departed Toni Morrison said it best: “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
I fear the judgment that history may render by that measure.
Words have not lost their power, of course. Far from it. Words do matter. But they are too often the tools of propaganda with little regard for truth, accuracy or fairness. The President, who has unrivaled power to use words for moral leadership, instead more often uses them to wound and incite. Marshalling words against that tide to make a reasonable point can be a daunting challenge, especially on a topic like immigration which has been politicized in an especially savage way.
The need for common sense action on immigration persists. Refugees continue to seek asylum. Millions of undocumented immigrants and their children still live in the shadows. American employers still need the labor that newcomers are eager to provide. If we are ever to find common ground on immigration, words must help lead us to it.
The need for common sense action on immigration persists. Refugees continue to seek asylum. Millions of undocumented immigrants and their children still live in the shadows.
For now, incendiary words drive our attention to the southern border and the arrivals for which we are ill-prepared and toward which our government is increasingly hostile. The situation is only likely to worsen. As climate change intensifies it will make vast parts of our planet uninhabitable. Untold numbers of climate refugees will seek survival in the United States and elsewhere. What then?
Amid the torrent of words on immigration – the talking points, the political advertisements, the spin – it is all too common to miss the perspectives and testimony of those directly affected. The words of immigrants, even when sought, can be lost to language differences and far more often to the sheer volume and meanness of bombastic tweets. Refugees and immigrants have been decried as “invaders.” Parents trying to save the lives of their children are called “aliens.” Those driven from their homes by violence and fear are “animals” and “thugs.” Weaponized language like this inspires violent hatred, drives Americans apart and puts us that much farther from any sort of acceptable solution.
The George Gund Foundation stands with those who are victims of this language. We do so with the words you are reading here, with our grants to agencies that work for immigrant and refugee justice and also with the powerful images presented in this annual report by acclaimed photographer Fazal Sheikh. Even when words may fail, these pictures of refugees and immigrants in Northeast Ohio make their statement in the language of photography, of art.
This photo essay lets them be seen – to the extent they wish to be seen, for some feared showing their faces. Even with that limitation, they make the simple but essential point that they are human beings with all of the emotions that any of us would feel in their circumstances. They remind us that the immigration debate is not about the politicians whose words may obscure or distort their lives.
It is often said that we are a nation of immigrants. The people pictured here, like many Americans’ ancestors, left their homes to find safety for their families, to find work, to achieve a better life. Others were forcibly evicted or taken from their homes, driven to a new, unsought country – at least faintly echoing the experience of African Americans’ forebears. Like them, the faces in these photographs are not white and there can be no ignoring the role that race plays in the current immigration debate. Our history has given America a unique multicultural diversity, a reality that some refuse to accept. There are daily failures to see our common humanity in faces of a different shade, and the struggle over immigration parallels our larger national failure to adequately deal with racism.
Clevelanders have long taken pride in our tapestry of nationalities. The Cultural Gardens along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Boulevard are the most visible expressions of that pride. We also demonstrate it by the hospitality Clevelanders show to refugees through programs such as The Refugee Response, Global Cleveland, International Newcomers Academy of the Cleveland school system, HOLA, and Catholic Charities’ legal assistance. The religious imagery in the photographs reflects the faith traditions that sheltered some of those pictured and also the tenet of nearly all faiths that commands the welcoming of strangers. That spirit certainly moves these organizations and others. It should move us all. Compassion is not policy, of course, but policy without it can be mere cruelty. This letter is no policy prescription but it is a call for recognizing the humanity of refugees and immigrants and for considering that humanity in policy making. To do otherwise, to follow the path of demonizing those who seek to join our country, is to abandon our fundamental ideals and to sacrifice what we yet aspire to be our national character. We must do better.
David Abbott
Executive Director
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The George Gund Foundation announces gifts of $15 million to Say Yes Cleveland
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation is pleased to announce historic gifts of $15 million to
Say Yes to Education Cleveland to support and send students who graduate from the
Cleveland Metropolitan School District to college and other post-secondary
credentialed programs. The Foundation awarded a $10 million grant, with
additional gifts of $5 million from Gund family members who wanted to ensure
the program would be in place for the CMSD graduating class of 2019. Geoffrey
and Sarah Gund made a personal commitment of $4 million to Say Yes Cleveland,
and Gordon and Llura Gund pledged $1 million. The total investment of $15
million is a testament to the deep commitment of The George Gund Foundation and
the Gund family to the children of Cleveland.
For the next 25 years, Say Yes Cleveland will award a tuition scholarship to
Cleveland residents who attend and graduate from a CMSD or partnering charter high
school and pursue a postsecondary credential at any public university, college,
or Pell-eligible certificate program in Ohio, as well as at 100+ private
colleges in the Say Yes National Higher Education Compact. In addition to the
last-dollar college tuition scholarship, Say Yes also calls for PreK–12
services, supports, and extended learning opportunities to ensure students are
prepared to be successful in their post-secondary studies.
The George Gund Foundation has been working with school district and community
partners to improve college readiness, access, and persistence rates for CMSD
students for many years, particularly as a complement to the George Gund and
Cleveland foundations’ investments in a portfolio of new high schools in
Cleveland. Say Yes Cleveland builds on the momentum of the Cleveland Plan and
the groundwork laid by College Now and the Higher Education Compact, as well as
investments by city and county governments and other partners. The goals of Say
Yes Cleveland are very much aligned with key priorities of the Foundation: to
boost and retain population in the City of Cleveland, increase education level
of residents, improve college access for middle- and low-income families, and
spur economic growth and expansion.
Say Yes Cleveland has raised over $90 million out of a total goal of $125 million,
which will sustain the Say Yes Cleveland scholarship program for the next 25
years. The George Gund Foundation is pleased to be one of many funders of this
important initiative.
For more information about scholarship criteria, program implementation, or donations, please visit sayyescleveland.org.
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2018 President's Letter: A heartfelt farewell
George Gund
This November, I will step down as President of The George Gund Foundation after serving 25 years as its President and as a Trustee since 1976. I am fortunate to have been able to be so deeply involved in philanthropy, and particularly fortunate to have engaged in that work in Cleveland. The Foundation’s deep roots in Cleveland mirror my own roots: my strong attachment to this city has fueled my interest in maintaining Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and the state of Ohio as the focus of the Foundation’s charitable endeavors.
This occasion affords me the opportunity to review a little of the Foundation’s history as I have seen it unfold, focus on some of our important initiatives during this period, comment on a few of the many people with whom I am especially happy to have been associated, and conclude with a brief look toward the future of the Foundation.
It has been a special joy to be involved with The George Gund Foundation. During my tenure I have seen the Foundation’s grantmaking expand from $3.5 million annually, in 1976, to more than $25 million annually today, and from a staff of two to our current staff of twelve. Our localized funding, our collaborative work with other foundations, and our ability to leverage our knowledge of the community and the organizations within it, allows us to have a depth of impact that would not exist without concentrated grant making within a geographical area.
Our work in education is just one of many examples of the fruits of such a focus. Our Foundation began with a mission to aid education; that mission has been long defined by important steps to support the public school system in Cleveland. Our Foundation has been a part of such key initiatives as the 1998 school governance legislation, the development of the Cleveland Plan in 2012, the launch of our city’s high-quality preschool program, PRE4CLE, in 2014, and the recently announced Say Yes to Education Cleveland program, which will—for the next 25 years—award a tuition scholarship to Cleveland residents who graduate from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District so they have the opportunity—and the support—to earn a postsecondary credential. Say Yes is so promising that I found it personally important to contribute alongside the Foundation to make sure the program began in a most timely fashion.
In 1997, our Foundation helped form and fund the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (now called Arts Cleveland) as the vehicle to pursue local public funding for the arts. A successful vote in 2006 and again in 2015 for a cigarette tax has generated more than $180 million in public support for the arts for more than 400 large and small organizations in Cuyahoga County.
A member of our staff now co-chairs the Climate and Energy Funders Group, which seeks to expand the network of funders responding to global climate change through investments in state-based advocacy.
These are all examples of how our Foundation goes beyond a simple giving relationship with grantees and directly engages in policy, planning, strategy, and implementation to help advance important work in our community. The ability to do this effectively stems from our place-based focus.
Our localized funding, our collaborative work with other foundations, and our ability to leverage our knowledge of the community and the organizations within it, allows us to have a depth of impact that would not exist without concentrated grant making within a geographical area.
I could not have had the experience I have had without wonderful and unfailing support of the executive director and program and support staff over many years. The longevity of our staff is testimony to their loyalty and dedication to the Foundation and its mission. I have enjoyed working with three extremely able executive directors: Jim Lipscomb, who moved the Foundation to finance the study leading to the creation of Cleveland Tomorrow, a private economic development organization; David Bergholz, who, along with me, was responsible for the Foundation’s incredible annual report photography collection, exhibited at The Cleveland Museum of Art and published in 2002 in A City Seen: Photographs from The George Gund Foundation Collection; and currently David Abbott, who suggested the idea for a two-year fellowship at the Foundation for young professionals to both enhance the Foundation’s work as well as train future leaders in the nonprofit sector.
These individuals, along with two acting executive directors, Richard Donaldson and Henry Doll, make up the executive leadership of the Foundation since 1969. I also note the importance of my predecessor as President of the Board, Frederick Cox, in shaping the mission and leadership of the Foundation during his tenure from 1973 to 1994. None of the Foundation’s work would be possible without the dedicated staff and board members we have had over the years.
The expansion of the Board of Trustees to include the third generation of the family has been one of my most important endeavors as President. Happily, that process began when my niece, Catherine Gund, became a Board member in 1998, and has continued to the present day. Five others of her generation have joined the Board since that time. I have great confidence in the next generation of family and non-family trustees and the challenging and changing work in which they will engage.
Neither would this work be possible without the many incredible grantees with whom our staff so frequently interacts and the relationships that grow between and among them. It has been a hallmark of our life and achievement as a Foundation to develop and maintain long-standing commitments to programs that enhance the community. Nonprofit organizations are at the core of our work, and there is much we can learn from our developing and developed expertise in the community.
As I look to the future, the divisiveness of public debate and the continuing demonization of government and the press have eroded our ability to collectively face problems squarely and solve them at the federal level. The increasing friction in our politics for the sake of short-term political gain makes it hard to imagine and to put into place the kinds of policies that will solve the many problems we face as a country. Where the government fails to act, such as in the long-term existential threat of climate change, we must be at the forefront of public policy and action. Where the government has erected barriers to programs that help those in need, we must maintain and enhance programs supporting those in need.
Where the government has erected barriers to programs that help those in need, we must maintain and enhance programs supporting those in need.
At the same time, we must accommodate ourselves to justice for the diverse and varied society we always have been, but are just beginning to recognize in critical social justice concept. We must help to nurture and develop those organizations that contribute to the well-being of society. We must help make sure the poor and dispossessed have the means of gaining the opportunity that we have said all Americans should have. To that end, we will move to help businesses to develop in poor and blighted areas, to give minorities their place in the arts, to make the environment heathy for all peoples, and to promote justice for young people and adults, while also focusing on the development of a more complete democracy.
America is uniquely fortunate to have a robust charitable sector that can make use of the American propensity to dream and to act on behalf of the greater good of society. In an obvious sense, philanthropy is a privilege, and there are responsibilities that come along with that privilege. One is to make the most of the opportunity. And that means to be aware and alive to the possibilities of change and growth at all times.
Geoffrey Gund
President
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The George Gund Foundation seeks 2020–2022 fellow
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation Fellowship provides an opportunity for promising professionals to work inside the Foundation, a philanthropic organization that plays a vital role in supporting the civic life of Greater Cleveland and in various state and national policy deliberations that affect our community. The Fellowship is a two-year, full-time commitment beginning in summer 2020, requiring residence in Northeast Ohio during the term of engagement. The Fellowship experience will be tailored to the Foundation’s needs and will include a wide range of substantive assignments including analyzing grant proposals, organizing and conducting site visits and research related to the Foundation’s grantmaking interests.
To be considered for the Fellowship, each candidate must submit a cover letter, a short essay discussing why the Fellowship opportunity is appealing, a detailed resume and two letters of recommendation. Please also indicate how you learned of the position. These materials should be combined into one PDF document for submission and are due no later than 5 p.m. EST on January 10, 2020. The Fellow will be selected in the spring of 2020. Application materials should be emailed to hr@gundfdn.org. Letters of recommendation may be submitted as part of the application or sent separately via email or regular mail.
The Foundation views the Fellowship as a valuable early career opportunity and the selection process will be highly competitive. The successful candidate for this Fellowship will have demonstrated a desire to work in public service or the nonprofit sector. Excellent critical thinking and writing skills as well as sufficient computer competency to carry out assigned work are essential. While a graduate degree and/or several years work experience are typical of Gund Fellows, the Foundation also welcomes applications from untraditional candidates who possess the skills outlined above but whose life experiences have taken them down different paths.
Each George Gund Foundation Fellow will receive a stipend of $47,500 per year, plus a full benefits package including health, dental, disability and life insurance, 403(b) contributions and work-related travel expenses. Housing, transportation and other living arrangements are the responsibility of the Fellow. The George Gund Foundation, established in 1952, is the largest private foundation in Ohio. The Foundation makes annual grants totaling approximately $25 million. Program officers professionally handle grantmaking in arts, economic development and community revitalization, education, environment and human services.
The George Gund Foundation is an equal opportunity employer, hiring without discrimination due to race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, disability or any other protected characteristic established by law. The Foundation has a deep commitment to racial equity and inclusion and seeks a highly diverse pool from which to select the strongest candidate for this position. African-Americans and other underrepresented minorities who match this Fellowship profile are strongly encouraged to apply.
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The George Gund Foundation awards $7,271,790 at winter meeting
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation awarded $7,271,790 at its winter meeting to organizations ranging from a new theater festival to long-established groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland.
The inaugural Borderlight Festival of Theatre Cleveland, is a 4-day international and local performing arts festival premiering in August based in downtown venues and at Cleveland’s neighborhood theatres. It will feature renowned performers from abroad and world premiere collaborations between Cleveland-based theatre artists and international artists. It was awarded a $100,000 grant.
The Boys & Girls Clubs will receive $50,000 to support the development of a digital arts suite at East Technical High School as part of the community’s celebration of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July. The Cleveland Indians are also supporting the creation of the suite along with other projects in Cleveland to leave a legacy of the summer event.
Other grants of interest include:
- Birthing Beautiful Communities (BBC) will receive an $80,000 grant. BBC is a village of birth workers or doulas who primarily provide social support to pregnant women at highest risk for infant mortality during the perinatal period. The pre-term birth rate among black women in Ohio is 45 percent higher that all women statewide and the black infant mortality rate in Cuyahoga County is more than triple that of white infants. BBC addresses and improves the systemic and community structures that lead to poor birth outcomes through culture, education, advocacy, support and engagement. Its free neighborhood-based services include childbirth and parenting education with workshops and classes on breastfeeding, stress relief, bonding with baby, co-parenting and healthy eating.
- For the past several years, the Foundation has supported the work that the Cleveland Police Department (CPD), Strategies for Youth and the Schubert Center for Child Development at Case Western Reserve University to develop model policies or protocols regarding youth interactions with the police that could be adopted by the CPD. Strategies for Youth will receive a $50,000 grant to support programs that will seek to reduce the use of force against and the number of arrests of people by police in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County and improving communications and overall relations between police and youth, particularly youth of color.
- $100,000 to support Youth Opportunities Unlimited, founded to connect Cleveland’s high school youth to their first paid summer jobs. The program partners with local high schools, employers, and nonprofits to provide year-round, in-school and after-school programs that help hundreds of teens and young adults prepare for the workforce.
- $3,600,000 over three years to Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, to support its goal of positively impacting the community by providing financial support, training and capacity building efforts to community development corporations, supporting and performing placemaking activities to improve residential, commercial and greenspace properties, and delivering economic opportunity programming to ensure city residents can thrive where they live.
- $200,000 over two years to support the Alliance for the Great Lakes, the largest and oldest citizens’ environmental organization dedicated to the protection of the Great Lakes. It strives to conserve and restore the world’s largest freshwater resource using policy, education and local efforts, ensuring a healthy Great Lakes and clean water for generations of people and wildlife. The Alliance ensures that the Great Lakes Compact, a comprehensive international effort to conserve water resources in the Great Lakes Basin, is a strong and effective tool for enforcing water conservation and resource impact prevention.
- $100,000 to Ohio City Incorporated to help support the final phases of the Irishtown Bend Park planning and design initiative. Irishtown Bend is a 17-acre site that connects Ohio City to the Flats, downtown, and Lake Erie. The property is poised to undergo significant hillside restabilization in advance of the creation of a park that will include the final section of the Lake Link Trail – a cascading system of walkways, trails and park amenities leading down the hillside.
The George Gund Foundation was established in 1952 by George Gund, former chairman of the Cleveland Trust Company. The Foundation funds programs that enhance our understanding of the physical and social environment in which we live and increase our ability to cope with its changing requirements. Grants are made three times a year in the areas of education, human services, economic and community development, environment and arts. Foundation commitments to date have totaled over $740 million.
Further details on the Winter 2019 grant awardees can be found at www.gundfoundation.org.
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The George Gund Foundation Appoints Jennifer Coleman as Senior Program Officer for the Arts
George Gund
Jennifer Coleman, a long-time force in the development of a more creative and vibrant Cleveland, will be The George Gund Foundation’s new Senior Program Officer for the Arts, the foundation announced today.
Coleman, an architect, has been president of her own design firm, Jennifer Coleman Creative LLC, since 2005. She also founded CityProwl.com, a company that creates and distributes digital audio walking tours of Cleveland. Among her many civic endeavors, Coleman has served as chair of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission and the Downtown/Flats Design Review Committee. She also has been a member of the board of trustees of many organizations, including the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Cleveland International Film Festival, LAND studio, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden.
“I am excited to start a new chapter of my career at The George Gund Foundation and I look forward to taking my commitment to Cleveland’s continued vibrancy in a philanthropic direction,” Coleman commented. “I am fortunate and honored to be joining this respected organization that has made such a positive impact on our city and its people.”
“It will be great to have Jennifer join us,” said David T. Abbott, executive director of the Foundation. “Her record of accomplishment and her deep artistic and community perspective will bring strength to the Gund Foundation’s efforts to maximize the impact of the arts in Cleveland.”
Coleman was selected through a national search managed by Koya Leadership Partners of Chicago. “There were numerous highly qualified candidates,” said Abbott. “Talking to many of them helped us sharpen our focus, and we are thrilled that Jennifer emerged as the best choice.”
Coleman has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University. She practiced architecture with Robert P. Madison International, URS Corporation and Westlake Reed Leskosky before starting her own firm.
Coleman will begin her new role at the Foundation on August 10, stepping into the position held for 25 years by Deena Epstein, who retired earlier this month. She and her husband, August Fluker, a principal at City Architecture, live in Cleveland with their son, Cole.
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The George Gund Foundation Awards $7 Million at Summer Meeting
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation has joined an alliance of national and Ohio-based funding partners and approved a $200,000 grant to launch the Ohio Transformation Fund, an initiative focused on changing inequities in the justice system that now result in nearly one in six Ohio adults having some form of criminal record.
“There is growing interest and urgency inside government and across Cleveland and other Ohio communities to seek changes in these policies, especially in light of recent tragic events,” said Senior Program Officer Marcia Egbert.
She said this initiative is an extension of work the Foundation has supported for more than a decade in juvenile justice reform targeted at reducing the number of youth in detention institutions, closing the worst facilities, supporting high-quality community alternatives and shifting state funding to reflect a more community-focused juvenile justice system.
At its summer meeting, Foundation Trustees also approved several grants for continued juvenile justice work including $150,000 over two years to the Northern Kentucky Children’s Law Center, up to $80,000 for the Juvenile Justice Coalition Inc. and up to $85,000 over two years to Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Innovative Practices.
“This is an important moment of opportunity in Cleveland and statewide to challenge long-embedded policies and practices in our justice system,” added Egbert. “We hope these investments will help drive effective, equitable and lasting reforms that simultaneously promote fairness and improve community safety.”
The grants were among 92 made to a wide range of education, environment, arts, human services and economic and community development organizations totaling $7,084,400.
Grants of more than $1.3 million reflected the Foundation’s continuing effort to create a portfolio of new, excellent and innovative schools in Cleveland. These included $780,000 to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District for three new schools at the newly-rebuilt John Marshall High School, the second year of the Cleveland High School for the Digital Arts and a redesigned Cleveland School of the Arts; $300,000 to Friends of Breakthrough Schools for continued planning and expansion of its charter school network; $170,000 to Bard College for Bard High School Early College Cleveland; and $100,000 to Montessori Development Partnerships for the new Stonebrook Montessori School.
Other grants of interest include:
- $580,000 to the Cleveland Play House for operating support and for the Spotlight on Excellence Centennial Campaign
- $200,000 over two years to the Rails to Trails Conservancy for the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition
- $300,000 to the Educational Service Center of Cuyahoga County for the PRE4CLE high-quality pre-school initiative
- $180,000 over two years to the Trust for Public Land to support its Cleveland office
- $137,500 to the Cleveland Municipal School District Transformation Alliance
- $20,000 to the St. Clair-Superior Development Corporation for the Upcycle Parts Shop
- $35,000 to the City Club of Cleveland to upgrade the technology used for its forums
The George Gund Foundation was established in 1952 by George Gund, former chairman of the Cleveland Trust Company. The Foundation funds programs that enhance our understanding of the physical and social environment in which we live and increase our ability to cope with its changing requirements. Grants are made three times a year in the areas of education, human services, economic and community development, environment and arts. Foundation commitments to date have totaled more than $672 million.
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The George Gund Foundation's 2014 Annual Report Available Online
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation’s 2014 online, interactive annual report, with its photo-essay highlighting a priority issue for the Foundation, is available on the Foundation’s website.
Photographer David Burnett captured the vitality and diversity of Cleveland’s rapidly growing cycling community in this year’s photo- essay. Several photos feature bicycle commuters, particularly appropriate this week as Bike Cleveland celebrates Bike to Work Day May 15.
In his annual letter, Foundation Executive Director David Abbott discusses the ways in which biking helps make Cleveland a healthier, more accessible and more attractive community. Geoffrey Gund, Foundation president, highlights the Foundation’s interest in quality early childhood education and the role staff played in developing the nationally-recognized PRE4CLE initiative.
The report also includes guidelines and procedures for applying for grants, a financial statement and a list of grants made during 2014.
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Marissa Williams Named 2015-2017 Gund Fellow
George Gund
Marissa Williams, a community planning coordinator for the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership in Warren, Ohio, has been selected as The George Gund Foundation 2015-2017 Fellow.
The George Gund Foundation Fellows program, started in 2004, provides an opportunity for promising young professionals to work inside the Foundation, an organization that plays an active role in supporting the civic life of Greater Cleveland and in various national policy deliberations that impact our community. Each fellow, selected from a nationwide pool of applicants, works at the Foundation for two years.
Williams has a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Willamette University and a Master of Science in Social Administration from Case Western Reserve University. The Cleveland native also has worked as an AmeriCorps College Guide for College Now Greater Cleveland, a community relations intern with FutureHeights and a community development intern at Fairfax Renaissance Development.
She begins work at the Foundation June 15.
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Foundation Awards $3 Million to Playhouse Square Capital Campaign
George Gund
The George Gund Foundation has made a $3 million grant to Playhouse Square’s Advancing the Legacy capital campaign that will be used to restore the lobby of the historic Ohio Theatre.
The lobby, which will be renamed The George Gund Foundation Lobby, was badly damaged by a fire in 1963. During its early 1980s renovation, the lobby was not restored to its former grandeur due to lack of funding and time, and a simple, contemporary design was created.
Work on the lobby, which will include re-creation of murals and fireplaces, hand-carved ceiling panels and ornamentation, painting and new carpeting, is scheduled to begin in July.
“Playhouse Square is one of Cleveland’s greatest success stories,” said David Abbott, Foundation executive director. “The Foundation has been a key supporter of the Playhouse Square Foundation since 1978. This gift builds on our past investments and will help ensure that Clevelanders continue to enjoy the arts and cultural programs that take place in its beautifully restored theaters for years to come.”