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Georgina D. (Brown) Sanford
Born September 8, 1924
Died December 23, 1995
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The world Georgina coped with in the early fifties was different than the one we live in today. She had no family, no support in this country except for friends. There were no government programs available to help single mothers with no income as there are now. Georgina was almost literally on her own with a baby to raise. She faced the problems single mothers face today…good child care, available childcare, jobs with bosses who understand mothers have sick children, bills that come every month, paychecks which are less than needed, and no child support from deadbeat dads. In addition, she faced a world when most women didn’t work after marriage although it was a world where women had been in the workforce because the men were fighting a war. She had opportunities but she did it alone for the most part. She and she alone was responsible for the care and well being of her child.
Because Georgina had no financial skills, no investment knowledge, no talent with money, her son felt obligated at a very young age to begin to help with paying their bills. At age 9, he got a newspaper route and began his career in business. Georgina lived from paycheck to paycheck from necessity and from lack of knowledge as to how the credit system, the banking system, and the investment systems worked in our country. Life was a struggle for Georgina in making ends meet. Because of his mother’s experience and his own childhood, Louis Brown has made it his mission to provide education to people in this country who need financial education, need to know how the credit system works, how to balance checkbooks, how to save, how to invest, how to buy that first house, how to interrupt the stress financial pressures put on families and on children, how to learn from the past, and to preserve family in our world today.
His philosophy of charity is based on the principles of integrity, responsibility, loyalty, fairness, and the ethic of hard work. Louis believes in the old Chinese adage that if you give a man a fish you feed him for one day, if you teach him to fish, you feed him for the rest of his life. The ethic of hard work proved invaluable to Louis personally and is one thing he credits for his own success, that and education. He also passionately believes that in order not to repeat the past, you must learn from the past. Thus, he believes in family history and the preservation of family and community history.
The Georgina D. Sanford Foundation was created to support the concept of family as the community building stone in our country. It is based on Louis Brown’s principles, work ethic, and philosophy. The Foundation will support programs which will educate and teach young people as well as people of all ages investment and fiscal responsibility, programs which will preserve family history, programs which will alleviate financial, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual stress on families, programs which educate and prepare our young people for future business and personal endeavors, programs which support the spiritual and our community churches, and programs which help families in crisis. The Foundation will support 501(c) (3) organizations dealing with families and children in crisis in our communities as well as programs dealing with financial education through our churches and schools.
This foundation is dedicated to the memory of Georgina and her optimism, her courage in facing the future, her unwavering dedication to her family and her church, and her complete enjoyment of life in the face of adversity.
