The Cleveland Foundation has long served as a steward of gifts made in memory of a recently departed loved one. During World War II, the foundation even started a memorial fund to provide Clevelanders with a significant way to honor the sacrifice of relatives lost in combat. Retired U.S. Senator George V. Voinovich and his wife, Janet, are among the bereaved parents who have found solace in this form of philanthropy. After the tragic death of their nine-year-old daughter just days after Voinovich won the Republican primary for Cleveland mayor in 1979, the couple created the Molly Agnes Voinovich Memorial Fund to “share Molly’s love with people,” as Voinovich, who won the mayor’s race and went on to serve as Ohio governor and in the U.S. Senate, had simply explained.

Molly Agnes, the youngest of four siblings, was killed when a van that had run a red light struck her while she was walking back after lunch to her fourth-grade classroom at Oliver Hazard Perry School in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood. Fittingly, her parents decided that income from Molly’s memorial fund, which the Cleveland Foundation has administered since 1989, should help to pay for special academic programs, unbudgeted materials and equipment, and enrichment activities for students at Oliver Hazard Perry and other schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.