Fisher Foundation Gives $2.85 Million To Hayes Awards

The Hayes Awards' Linda Levy Grossman calls the gift "an incredibly important endorsement of our work." (By Scott Suchman)

The Helen Hayes Awards, which promotes support of the region's theaters, announced yesterday that it has received a $2.85 million gift from a local foundation -- the largest donation in the arts organization's 23-year history.

The donation from the Robert M. Fisher Memorial Foundation, a private family fund, includes a $2 million outright gift and an $850,000 grant that must be matched by other donors. The match increases the endowment to $3.7 million.

"This is an incredibly important endorsement of our work," said Linda Levy Grossman, executive director of the Hayes Awards.

The annual proceeds from the endowment will support a program that introduces D.C. schoolchildren to theater. The Hayes Awards underwrites the experience to 3,000 students a year, buying the tickets and renting the buses for third- through ninth-graders.

In addition, a new initiative, the Fisher Angels Program, will help pay the cost of tickets to the annual awards ceremony for actors, artists, administrators and technicians.

"Every year, the cost continues to rise," Grossman said. Started in 1984, the program is an extravaganza that has given more than 500 awards to actors, choreographers, designers and directors, among others. The awards evening is not a fundraiser for the organization, which has a budget of less than $1 million, Grossman said.

Another part of the Fisher donation will go to improve the Hayes infrastructure.

The awards are named after Helen Hayes, the legendary Washington-born actress who worked in each decade of the 20th century; she died in 1993.

The Fisher Foundation was started by real estate developer Jess Fisher to remember his son, Robert, who died in 1969. Over the years, Jess Fisher was active in Washington's Jewish community and real estate organizations. His daughter, Cecilia "Cooky" Fisher Rudman, Robert's twin, died in 2002. Fisher died in 2003, three days after the death of his wife, Mildred.

John Schofield, a trustee of the foundation, said in a statement: "Jess, Mildred and Cookie cared deeply about the Helen Hayes Awards and the education and service programs they offer to young students and to the entire Washington community. The foundation is thrilled to support this organization, whose efforts make our community a better place to live."