President’s Note Sept/Oct ‘26

My grandfather, who was born in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, never passed a kids’ lemonade stand without making a contribution - even though he didn’t really like lemonade. Seeing him take time to do it on more than one occasion when I was a little kid and asking him why he made a thing of it, he explained his idea of the importance of charity to me. He told me that giving as much money as you could to help people in need - and especially to address injustice - was a crucial aspect of society, and he implored me to understand that I had a personal responsibility to be involved, and to always have an attitude of goodwill and empathy.

My dad is the same way as his dad was, sans the lemonade stands… He was on his way into Breads N’ Bakes in Pound Ridge on a sunny Saturday morning in late June, just a couple days after a big storm that blew through the area, and noticed a black car sitting in the back parking lot that had obviously been totally obliterated by a huge tree that had fallen during the storm.

When he inquired inside about the totaled car…the barista, Tony DeVito, explained that it was actually his car - or what used to be his car - and revealed what a devastating loss it was for him. He explained that he needed the car to get to work at Breads N’ Bakes and at his other job at The Bedford Post - and that neither his own insurance nor any third party or their insurers would cover the total-insurable-loss- value of $6,000, no less the true cost of a reasonable replacement. Tony seemed crestfallen.

When my dad brought the croissants from Breads N’ Bakes over to my house that morning you could see that he was really disturbed by what had, quite literally, befallen Tony. …We determined to do what we could to help, and created a reel on the B&NC Instagram @bedfordnewcanaanmag, appealing to our 25k followers and the broader B&NC community to contribute to a Go Fund Me account to help Tony out…

…And we couldn’t be more pleased to share that the B&NC community really stepped-up…and that we were able to present Tony with a total donation of just under $15,000 toward a new car!

When we dropped-in on Tony to share the good news in July, he was in tears and declared that the donation was ‘life changing’!

We’re thrilled to have helped Tony, and we’re honored to be a part of this charitable and generous community!