A Donor Story:
An Innovative Partnership for the Good
of the Community

Mindful of the “Eugene Lang Promise”, to reward each high school graduate with a scholarship for college, Jack Shaw, his wife, Ellen Shockro, and a group of local citizens came together in an effort to create a program for the unique needs of a very special Orange County community: the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach, Calif. The couple was inspired by the work philanthropist Eugene Lang who began a similar program for kids in Harlem, NY.

Shaw, retired vice chairman of Deloitte and Touche and an enthusiastic sailor, and Shockro, a history and humanities professor at Pasadena City College and a master swimmer, kicked off the El Viento program in 1997 with a fourth-grade class in Huntington Beach. Their goal, Shaw explains, was to utilize sailing, water, environment, and ecology, to connect underprivileged students to the greater world. A further education for these children would eventually transform the Oak View community from the downward spiral of underachievement and low expectations, to a community that may take its proper place in Orange County.

Jack Shaw and Ellen Shockro began their dream of bettering the Oak View community by opening a donor-advised fund at the Orange County Community Foundation. They advise their friends and colleagues, who support the El Viento program, to open funds at the Community Foundation, which will enable them to do all of their charitable giving from one convenient source.

“The Orange County Community Foundation gives a venue and a perspective on giving that many donors don’t have, but need.  It plays a major role in philanthropy in Orange County by making charitable giving visible to the community,” Shaw said.