Our Laguna: Laguna celebrates its ‘man for all reasons’

Laguna celebrated the generous spirit and the birthday of Harry Lawrence Harry Lawrence on Thursday at Main Beach Park.

Lawrence is a businessman, an arts supporter, patriot, patron of the arts, a world traveler and a volunteer of extraordinary breadth.

His fingerprints are all over the town’s most cherished institutions — the Chamber of Commerce, the Laguna Art Museum, the Laguna Playhouse and the Festival of Arts, on which boards he served.

He was a founding member of the Beatification Council, served on the forerunner of the city’s Arts Commission and has been a member of the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn. since 1948.

He was involved in the construction of South Coast Hospital, paid for by donations and grants; and in the city’s acquisition of his beloved “Window to the Sea” where folks gathered to wish him a happy 96th birthday.

About 100 folks attended the party.

There would have been more — a lot of people showed up at 1 p.m., due to a mistake in the information given to the local press. The party actually started at 5 p.m.

Lawrence’s wife, Zahide, provided the catered food and the cake with a picture of Main Beach Park in icing.

Candles were limited to the number 96; otherwise the Fire Department would have to have been put on standby.

Lawrence has been honored for his contributions to the city by the chamber in 2001 as the Person of the Year.

The annual award was subsequently named for him. The Exchange Club bestowed the Book of Golden Deeds on him and he is a recipient of Rotary’s Paul David Fellowship.

The Patriots Day Parade named him Patriot of the Year in 1981 — he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II — and Parade Marshal in 2008.

The City Council named Oct. 1, 2008, as Harry Lawrence Day to recognize his outstanding contributions to the city. Elected officials from President George W. Bush to the City Council joined in the tribute.

American Legion Post Commander Dave Connell asked all the veterans in the room to stand and salute their comrade.

Lawrence was speechless — a rare occasion. He has more stories to tell than there is time to tell them.

The tribute was organized by the Chamber of Commerce, of which Lawrence has been a member from almost the day he and his late first wife, Maxine, bought Warren Imports in 1947.

Besides his volunteer activities, Lawrence has been a force in the business community since he bought the little shop in the French family’s enclave on South Coast Highway.

The shop was later moved to larger quarters on South Coast Highway, which Lawrence operated until his retirement in 2006.

Lawrence was dubbed Mr. Laguna for good reason. Although he has traveled to 155 countries, he still puts Laguna at the top of his list.

“I’ve gone everywhere and there’s no comparison when you put everything together that we have here,” Lawrence says.

HELPING HANDS

The Laguna Beach Community Foundation hosted a meeting Sept. 30 at Aliso Creek Inn to offer assistance in fundraising, board development, planned giving and financial management to local nonprofit organizations

“We are different from other foundations,” board of trustees President Laura Tarbox told the audience of about 50 representatives of local nonprofits.

“We are not about raising money for us. Our purpose is to facilitate finding funding for you.”

The foundation was founded by Mary Fegraus, Peter Kote, Wayne Peterson and Michael Pinto. They were later joined by Bob Dornin, Robert Gamez, Rick Balzer and Richard Crum.

The trustees have spent the past summer building momentum.

An anonymous $500,000 donation has seeded the endowment fund.

“From the beginning, we realized that our greatest contribution is planned giving,” Fegraus said. “That is the big focus for us.”

Although community foundations around the country charge fees for managing donated funds, the trustees elected to forgo the charges for the next 12 months.

“It is an incentive to donors to place funds with us,” said Robert Sheldon, co-executive director with Amanda J. Ferrari.

“Eventually a fee structure will be necessary.”

Chris Quilter, who attended the meeting on behalf of No Square Theatre and Laguna Beach Seniors Inc., was impressed by the quality of the board members.

“These are excellent folks with great skills,” Quilter said. “And they are doing themselves out of business.

Kote advised the audience that foundation trustees cannot gain clients or profit through the foundation.

“We have moved from a position of skepticism to a position of interest,” Quilter said. “I was pleased to see a strong emphasis on local giving. Outsiders view us as snooty and rich, so we can’t get [funding] from outside of town.

“But I would like to see them grapple with how varied we are.”

He thinks a core dilemma is groups getting stuck on their own path, without seeing the bigger picture.

“We can’t seem to get unstuck without World War III,” Quilter said. “There are groups in town that have overlapping missions and should consider joint ventures so they don’t have to have two boards and two sets of volunteers.”

Quilter believes a major function of the trustees would be to assess which groups are doing good-to-excellent job, which are not and award grants to make improvements.

The Community Foundation was started with a meeting in 2004 at the Assistance League’s Chapter House to gauge interest in the concept.

“With so many small, yet meaningful nonprofits all working for the betterment of our life in Laguna Beach, we felt that Laguna Beach was ready for a supporting organization,” Peterson said.

Fegraus confided that the founders decided to create a trust, rather than a corporation, which could be hijacked, citing the aborted attempts to spirit the Laguna Art Museum and the Festival of Arts out of town.

Randy Kraft, who attended the meeting on behalf of Friendship Shelter, was still uncertain after the meeting on foundation goals, but if it’s raising money for local nonprofits, she is all for it. Assistance with developing legacy planning — bequests — or endowments, as promised, would be most welcome.

“Grass-roots nonprofits do not have the time to develop legacy planning or endowments,” Kraft said.

Kraft’s perception of the trustees was that they had more expertise in finance than with nonprofits.

All of the trustees but Peterson, who served two terms on the City Council, have listed on their foundation resumes service on at least one nonprofit board and usually more.

Pinto has a doctorate in philanthropy.

Fegraus has experience with nonprofits from the Girl Scouts to the Laguna Canyon Foundation.

Financial Advisor Tarbox counsels clients on the tax benefits of giving.

Certified public accountant Gamez gives seminars on tax laws, including breaks for charitable donations. Financial planner Kote conducts seminars on estate planning.

“It can go to the IRS or it can stay in the local community,” Kote said. “But you have to do something to direct the money or it defaults to the IRS.”

Kraft’s major concern was that the foundation could dry up annual contributions to individual groups

“We are not competing with you for dollars,” Tarbox assured the audience. “We are trying to find new sources of funding for you.”

Among the audience: Bea Fields, Laguna Beach Seniors Inc.; Dr. Mark Judy, Marin Mammal Center; Gene Felder, Laguna Beach Historical Society; Bob Burnham, Community Courts Foundation; Terry Smith, a trustee of the Laguna College of Art & Design; Marge Earl, past president of the Laguna Beach Scholarship Foundation; Nancy Lawrence, organizer of Color it Orange; Tawfiq Sadiq, Afghan Amity; and Madeline Peterson, American Assn. of University Women.

For more information about the foundation, visit www.lagunabeachcommunityfoundation.org.

OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, 92652; call (949) 380-4321 or e-mail [email protected]