In 2000, I inherited some money, some of which I put aside to use to support the community.  I was living in Cambridge, Mass. attending the Harvard Kennedy School and started a donor advised fund at CJP – Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston.  When I moved to St. Louis a year later, I moved it to the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation and have worked with them ever since. 

I named my fund after my wonderful grandmother, Estelle Watelsky Kalish, my father’s mother. Not because the money came from her (it didn’t), but because I absolutely adored her.  Everyone did.  I was her first grandchild and there’s often something special between a grandmother and her first grandchild, and that was true for us.  In my eyes she could do no wrong.   

The Estelle W. and Karen S. Kalish Foundation is a donor-advised fund at the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation.  My giving is local and national, and in three areas:  75-80% goes to programs that are focused on literacy, closing the achievement gap, leveling the playing field for African Americans and issues of race.  Approximately 10-15% I give to organizations in the Jewish community, and the rest to causes that my close friends care about.  I do not accept unsolicited proposals.

I feel blessed.  To whom much is given, much is required, and I’m having a ball doing my work with Books and Badges, Home Works! The Teacher Home Visit Program and Cultural Leadership.  This is a "get to," not a got to.