Dr. Wally Pieczonka donates the largest ever legacy gift to the Burlington Foundation to improve access to the arts.

artsblue 100x100By Staff

February 7th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The Burlington Foundation last month announced the largest donation in its 20-year history through a legacy gift of $2.7-million by Dr. Wally Pieczonka.

Wally Pieczonka BF t

Dr. Wally Pieczonka.

Burl Foundation logoEstablishing the Pieczonka Family Foundation Fund through this remarkable act of generosity, Dr. Pieczonka and family will partner with Burlington Foundation to continue to realize the family’s vision to forever change lives through cultivating a thriving performing and visual arts community in Burlington and surrounding community.

Whether to expand accessibility to the arts for our most vulnerable individuals in the community; fuel innovative arts programming; or to boost sustainability for many beloved arts organizations in need, the establishment of this endowment fund will have the power to transform our arts community for generations.

After many years of supporting his philanthropic work through a private family foundation, with this announcement, Dr. Pieczonka is deepening his long-standing relationship with Burlington Foundation by transferring the stewardship of his life’s giving to the Foundation.

With this new donor-advised fund, the Foundation will partner with the Pieczonka family to ensure its wishes have the greatest impact on community through the arts for generations to come.

“My family and I believe the arts act as a unifying force that brings people together and we have been so proud to be able to raise up community-based arts which have sadly been critically and chronically underfunded,” says Dr. Pieczonka. “By choosing to entrust Burlington Foundation to guide and implement my family’s lifetime of giving through this foundation fund, I know our passion to strengthen the sustainability of the arts will continue to be honoured and importantly, have the greatest impact, well beyond the world of my children and grandchildren.”

BPAC people in pic

The Performing Arts Centre has been a beneficiary of Pieczonka philanthropy.

In 2012, Dr. Pieczonka established his first endowment fund with Burlington Foundation in loving memory of his late wife, Mavis Pieczonka. A founding member of the Burlington Foundation board, the retired Burlington business leader and founder of Gennum Corporation, was honoured by the Foundation in 2017 as Burlington’s Distinguished Philanthropist of the Year for his long-standing impact in our community. He also received an INCITE Award for the Arts in that same year.

Numerous organizations have been beneficiaries of Wally’s giving including The Burlington Performing Arts Centre, Burlington Symphony Orchestra, Southern Ontario Lyric Opera, the Art Gallery of Burlington, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and his alma maters, McMaster University and the University of Saskatchewan.

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