New Canaan Community Foundation Announces ‘Spirit of New Canaan’ Honorees

“They have given of themselves to make the community better”—that’s how New Canaan Community Foundation President and CEO Lauren Patterson describes five to be honored next month at the organization’s “Spirit of New Canaan” luncheon. Selected through a careful process that’s overseen by NCCF, this year’s honorees include: Tom McLane, who helped found the Community Foundation itself in 1977; Meg Domino, who has touched the lives of countless families here in 16 years as executive director of New Canaan CARES; New Canaan Land Trust board of directors member Schipper, widely credited with reinvigorating that important organization; and Kathie and Leo Karl Jr., heads of a civic-minded, longtime local family whose continuing legacy of community service is reflected in every aspect of the town. “The Spirit of New Canaan Awards are meant to honor remarkable people or couples who have an impact on the community, and typically that is through civic engagement, community leadership—volunteers or supporters of different efforts in the town who have made an impact,” Patterson said. The luncheon is to be held 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24 at Woodway Country Club. Those seeking to reserve a seat ($100) may do so through the Community Foundation’s website.

Faith, Family and Fierce on the Court: Rose Kelley Karl

[This is the second installment in a four-part series “Matriarchs of Main & Elm,” profiling the women behind New Canaan’s great business families.]

New Canaan’s Sara Schubert can remember walking through the woods as an 8-year-old girl to visit her grandmother, Rose Karl, at the Carter Street home that the family had built in 1926—the same year Rose’s own father, Henry Kelley, laid the cornerstone at the “new” New Canaan High School, now the police department. There, the woman whose leadership, wisdom and commitment to loved ones would make an indelible mark on an iconic New Canaan business and family, greeted young Sara with freshly baked cookies, milk and—characteristically—meaningful conversation. “I knew I wanted to be a school teacher, get married someday and have kids, and Grandma always told me that it should happen in that order,” Sara recalled on a recent afternoon. “She also told me to have a backup plan in case computers took over a teacher’s job, and this was back in the ‘70s. She was always so insightful, grounded and forward-thinking.”

One of 15 children born at the turn of the century to the prominent Kelley family of Carter Street, Rose would marry Leo Karl, Sr. at St.