Jerry and Carole’s shared passion for the arts is well-known in the community. Carole says, “(Art) helps to define the quality of life. Even if you are well able to put food on the table, culture is needed for the soul, mind, and spirit.”
Carole was a volunteer and ultimately a professional fundraiser for the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and BroMenn Foundation for the Mennonite College of Nursing. She was the first Executive Director of Illinois Prairie Community Foundation and served on over twelve boards, including the Multi-Cultural Leadership Program Board, Rotary Club of Bloomington, McLean County Museum of History, and Friends of the Arts at Illinois State University just to name a few. Her tireless efforts have won her an Alpha Omicron Pi Alumnae Women of Leadership Award, an Illinois State Board of Education Award of Excellence, the first McLean County YWCA Women of Distinction Award in the Arts, and she was chosen as a founding member of Northwestern University Council of 100, a group of women executives.
Jerry has served on the MARC Foundation Board, McLean County United Way Board, Illinois Shakespeare Festival Board, as an elder and Chairman of the Building Committee at First Presbyterian Church of Normal, and as a member and past president of the Kiwanis Club of Bloomington. He has served in some capacity on at least four more boards throughout the community as well as the Cornell College Board for 40 years.
