By Abby Bielagus By Abby Bielagus | October 30, 2024 | People,
Ted Truscott has donated millions of dollars to help make Boston better.
Ted Truscott wakes up at 3 a.m. to ensure he has enough time to give. For over 40 years he’s built a successful career in financial services and for the past two decades, he’s been giving, not just millions of dollars but countless hours. His philanthropic journey began at his alma mater Middlebury College, of which he is now a board member. From there, he became involved with The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB), where he is also a board member, and the Boston Medical Center (BMC) as well as the Plummer Youth Promise, of which his wife Kathy is a board member. What drives his passionate need to give back? “I’ve always believed that you have to pay it forward. I think it’s important that I am seen supporting the community,” he says.
The organizations and institutions that resonate with him are at the intersection of food insecurity, affordable housing, education and health care. “These are all areas that intersect at the notion of improving human lives,” he says. GBFB serves the BMC and supplies its food panty, just one of the food pantries it supports across 190 towns and cities in Eastern Massachusetts. “It’s truly problematic that we cannot feed this country. We’ve got to do what we can to take the strain off people who suffer from food insecurity,” he says. Truscott does this by helping the GBFB in it’s fundraising efforts.
Fundraising was at a record level during the pandemic but with 2020 in the rearview, donations have decreased and the need has not. The work isn’t easy, but Truscott believes he can make a difference, like so many others he sees laboring tirelessly—people like Dr. Christian Arbelaez, the chief of emergency medicine at BMC and Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of GBFB. “The real heroes are at these organizations doing amazing work every day. I’m but a mere steward trying to leave things better off than where I found them.”
Photography by: COURTESY OF COLUMBIA THREADNEEDLE INVESTMENTS