[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 12, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1384]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A MODEL OF GENEROSITY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 12, 2006

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, this past week the Visiting Nurses 
Association of Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties announced that it 
received a generous gift of $1 million from Lois McClure. It is what we 
have come to expect of Mrs. McClure. She, along with her husband, J. 
Warren McClure, who died in April 2004, has sustained and encouraged a 
great variety of community-building in the State of Vermont. From 
support for the hungry and the homeless to the preservation of Vermont 
history, from concern with teenage mothers to grants to champion Lake 
Champlain and its heritage, Lois McClure has used her substantial 
resources to make Vermont a better and more caring place to live.
  In addition to the remarkable donation to the VNA which was recently 
announced, let me cite only a partial listing of the donations that 
Lois McClure and J. Warren McClure have given to support Vermont and 
Vermonters. One million dollars to the Burlington Community Land Trust, 
the first municipally-funded land trust in the Nation. One million 
dollars to the Vermont Historical Society for the study of Vermont 
history, and $100,000 for the Rokeby Museum which preserves that 
history, as does the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, also a recipient 
of McClure funds. And $1 million to renovate the USS Ticonderoga at the 
Shelburne Museum, along with generous funding to build an 88-foot 
working replica of a sailing canal boat, appropriately christened the 
Lois McClure. Two and a half million dollars to the Leahy Center for 
Lake Champlain to study and preserve and educate people about the lake 
on Vermont's western border. Education? Generous grants to Vermont's 
St. Michael's College, Champlain College, the Snelling Center for 
Government, and the UVM Bailey-Howe Library. Money for preserving our 
agricultural tradition to Shelburne Farms, for supporting community 
philanthropy for the Vermont Community Foundation, for improving health 
care on every level to the Vermont-New Hampshire Red Cross, generous 
gifts to the Vermont Respite House and to the Fletcher-Allen Hospital.
  And money to build community, especially focused on the needs of the 
elderly, children and the homeless: To establish the McClure 
Multigenerational Center in Burlington, to support the Chittenden 
Emergency Food Shelf, and to the Baird Center for Children and Families 
and the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS) in Burlington.
  Many people work to make Vermont a special place. They tend to those 
in need and feed the hungry. They educate young people and secure the 
health of all of us. They remind us of our past and give us a firm 
foundation to move securely into the future. Lois McClure is just one 
of those many, one of the countless generous people in our state. But, 
always, financial support enables the work that we all do together to 
build and strengthen our communities. Time and again Lois McClure and 
her late husband have supported the efforts of those who care, and 
provided funds for those in need. And for that we thank her, and honor 
her.

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