Page 36 - BusinessWest February 17, 2021
P. 36

“To show you just how significant the need
is, we just closed out our application cycle
on January 31, and we had 170 applications,” Carpenter said. “These are 170 unique projects in our region, and when you read through them, the words ‘COVID’ and ‘pandemic’ were repeatedly mentioned, and how they’ve really had to change their whole strategy of ‘how do I even deliver products to customers?’
  “To be a great teacher is amazing. They’re molding children at a
very impressionable age, and
we’re recognizing them for the outstanding work they do. I think someone should stand”up and applaud the teachers.
behind each initiative — and for planting the seed for others to get involved, too.
Giving Back
Grinspoon made his fortune as a real-
estate entrepreneur, founding Aspen Square Management almost 60 years ago and watching the company bloom into a nationally recognized housing group managing more than 15,000 properties across the country.
In 1991, he established the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, focused on enhancing and improving Jewish life and culture. The Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, which raises funds and awareness for a number of educational and entrepreneurial activities in the Western Mass. region, followed soon after.
As he worked his way up in real estate, he told
Harold Grinspoon congratulates honorees at the Local Farmer Awards (left) and the Excellence in Teaching Awards.
BusinessWest in a 2008 interview, he developed a great sense of appreciation for the average blue-collar worker, and for the opportunities this country has afforded him, and felt a real responsibility to give back.
“I always knew, if I made it, I was going to give it away. I didn’t want to spend the entirety of my life making money,” he said at the time. “Philanthropy has, in many respects, set me free.”
Perhaps the best way to examine his
collective impact is through his foundations’ individual programs, such as the Grinspoon Entrepreneurship Initiative, a collaboration among 14 area colleges and universities.
 “We just feel we’ve met a need in good times, and it’s even more of a need now during this pandemic,” she went on. “We really want to help the farmers reach their full potential. It’s a hard business, and by giving them these awards to help them purchase a tractor implement or netting to cover their blueberry bushes so birds won’t get at them, or whatever the project is, it’s to help the farm reach their full potential.”
Harold Grinspoon, now 91 years old, has been helping people — and communities — reach their potential in myriad ways for decades now. He’s a Difference Maker not only for where he directs his money, but for the thought and passion he puts
  HERE’S TO A LOCAL INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE AROUND THE WORLD.
Congratulations to Harold Grinspoon and all of the Difference Makers.
    413-536-8510 | mbkcpa.com
    36 FEBRUARY 17, 2021
DIFFERENCE
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