Joining the Legacy Society
To help and encourage our Citizens to remember their community through the Foundation we have started a Legacy Society.
The Legacy Society recognizes all those who have notified us that they have included the Foundation in their Will or other deferred giving plan.
Note: We recommend that you discuss these options with your family and with your attorney, accountant, insurance agent or financial planner as may be appropriate. You may also contact the Foundation to discuss the various ways to leave your legacy through the Community Foundation.
Two Steps to Join
- Arrange your estate to leave a gift to CCCF, Inc.: Common ways to do this are:
- Bequest through your will
- IRA/401K designation
- Transfer ownership of Life Insurance policy
- Charitable Trusts (life income arrangements)
- Charitable Remainder Trust
- Charitable Lead Trust
- Charitable Gift Annuity
- Estate Note/Deferred Pledge Agreement (available from CCCF, Inc. office)
- There is NO minimum amount of deferred gift to qualify to be named and published in the Legacy Society.
- Inform the Clinton County Community Foundation, Inc. that you have made the necessary arrangements by returning the form. This will give us permission from you to disclose your name in future listings of Legacy Society members.
A Sense of Purpose: Jean Sharp Rempe Hendrich
Jean Sharp Rempe Hendrich devoted her life to making others' lives more fulfilling.
Even in death, her benevolence graced the Clinton County community. A woman described by co-workers as "pleasant" and "friendly," Jean embodied the essence of the spirit of giving. It was upon her generosity and ungrudging contribution, that the Clinton County Foundation was founded. Her pioneering spirit and community love are attributes to be revered by generation of the past and of those to come.
Undoubtedly, Jean's life story is one that holds true to the notion of triumph in the face of defeat. A 1934 graduate of Lock Haven High School, she was described by her schoolmates as "intellectual, conservative and agreeably talkative." She attended the Lock Haven State Teachers College, (present day Lock Haven University), and later went on to pursue a nursing career at a university in Cheaster, PA. There Jean gain status as the top-ranking student in her class. However, she was struck with rheumatic fever in her senior year, which resulted in a series of heart surgeries which she endured throughout her life.
With the bulldog tenacity that was characteristic of her nature, Jean returned to school within a year of the near-fatal illness. School officials thought it best that she not remain at that institution because of poor water conditions, so they transferred her to a school in Harrisburg. From there, Jean pondered what she really wanted to do with her life. She returned to Lock Haven and secured a job as a maid at the Lock Haven Hospital. It was at this time that she pointedly chose to become a registered record librarian, a position in which she would work diligently for the next 20 years.
To pursue this dream, Jean moved to Binghamtom, NY, where she worked at a local hospital as she trained for her new career. She returned to the Lock Haven Community in the late 1940s and was hired as the hospital's first-ever record librarian. Albert Speth, retired Lock Haven Hospital CEO, gave an account of his time with Jean. "She was quite an interesting lady and had an excellent sense of humor. I came in 1957 and was very pleased to have a record librarian on the staff. She was one of the top pros that we had at that time." Speth said that because of Jean's expertise, the hospital, which was at one time in a state of disarray because of poorly kept medical records, was strengthened as it pursued accreditation. "She was an excellent lady who trained her staff well. She updated over 5,000 unfinished medical records. It was a tough job in those days because physicians were not accustomed to keeping records. She related well to people. No one recognized what a gem they had in her."
While employed at the hospital, Jean met and married Robert Rempe. Before her marriage, however, Jean's heart had been so badly damaged from the chronic fever she first suffered during her senior year in college, that she was sent to Philadelphia to undergo heart surgery. This was the first of four heart surgeries she was to endure in her lifetime. Her husband was a Local business owner, but had to sell his department store during the Great Depression. Following his death in 1968, Jean was the sole beneficiary of his assets. It was with the is inheritance that she made the initial gift, in the amount of $43,000, half of what she inherited, that started the Foundation. She later married the late Alfred Hendrich, whose assets also became part of the Foundation's resources.
Grace Lacovazzi, Binghamton, one of two surviving siblings of Jean, said her sister's main purpose for establishing the initial fund was putting back into the community what the community had given her. "My parents would be proud that all of their children were successful," she affirmed. One of six children, Jean was born to the late Frank V. Sharp and Ella Garthoff Sharp on November 18, 1915, in Lock Haven. The fifth child of the couple, Grace affectionately describes her older sister as "an optimist at heart" and one who "had faith in people."
While growing up, the two were inseparable, and Grace lovingly proclaimed that she was very happy that her sister succeeded in life. Because both of her marriages took place in her later years, Jean did not have children of her own. Nonetheless, she can be revered by all as a mother to the Clinton County community because of her unselfish efforts that founded an organization whose sole purpose is to support this community.
On Monday, May 14, 1979, during her fourth and final heart surgery, one of the county's most noble citizens expired at the age of 63. Her life of unrestrained beneficence and diligent servitude to the community lives on in the fact that the Foundation has now grown to an endowment of $8.7 million. Jean's spirit of giving will continue to thrive as long as there is a Clinton County Community Foundation and organizations that benefit from it.