Co-Chairs

Glenn Camhi
Keith Camhi

Scholarship Committee

Geoff Alswanger

Claire Fishman

Sandy Goldstein

Jerry Pia

Polly Rauh

Adele Gordon
in memoriam

Administered by

Stamford Public
Education Foundation
Matthew Quinones, CEO

Tribute

The 2020 Scholarship is dedicated to the memory of Adele Gordon

A founding member of the Scholarship Committee, Adele’s lifelong dedication to public service has helped and inspired countless people — and continues to do so. A beloved friend and colleague of Ellen Camhi’s, she is sorely missed by the entire committee and all who knew her.

Adele and Ellen were “two peas in a pod, finishing each other’s thoughts” as Adele’s daughter Michelle Hainbach puts it. They were “partners in creating and implementing policies and programs to improve the community, the city, the state, [all while] enjoying each other's company and making it look easy while doing it! We were all beneficiaries of that friendship.”

Adele grew up with the notion that when you’ve been given much, you need to give back. And she gave her all. She began her career as a speech therapist for public schools and nonprofits. When she saw the education system wasn’t what she felt it should be, she didn’t complain.

She stepped up to help fix it.

A lifelong advocate for public education, Adele served on the Stamford Board of Education for ten years (two as president), which is where she and Ellen met. Adele also served on the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (also as president), and was a founding member of both the CT Association for Children With Learning Disabilities (also serving as Director) and the Stamford Public Education Foundation — which administers this Scholarship.

Adele served tirelessly on so many other boards and commissions that it makes us tired just to think about!

These included: the Domestic Violence Crisis Center (as Chair), the Red Cross, Literacy Volunteers, SilverSource, ARI (social services for people with disabilities and their families), the Adult Education Advisory Committee, the Stamford Partnership, the Stamford Police Commission, and the CT Employment and Training Commission. For a decade, she also served as VP of the Training Connection, training and finding employment for low-income women.

Adele firmly believed that health care for all is a right, not a privilege.

In the late 1990s, after she found it difficult to find much-needed dental care for an unemployed woman she was counseling who’d been a victim of domestic violence, she decided she had to do something more.

Some people give up.

Others just knock on more doors. 

Not Adele.

She goes ahead and creates a state-of-the-art dental clinic. 

In 1999 she founded — and served as Executive Director and President of — the Dental Center of Stamford, a nonprofit clinic providing high quality oral health care to thousands. 

In 2005, she oversaw its merging with the Community Health Center (CHC), which provides primary health care to low-income patients, and she subsequently served as CHC’s Fairfield County Site Director and Assistant to the President for Strategic Development. She spearheaded the efforts to open new centers in both Norwalk and Danbury, and was instrumental in opening a new Stamford flagship CHC.

In 2018, the Stamford Health Director named Adele a Public Health Champion, and the CHC dedicated the new clinic in her honor.

Whether through education, health care, or politics, Adele always strove to help more people. Back in 2010, when the national Pew Center Dental Campaign ranked Connecticut with an “A” for children’s oral care, Adele’s response was:

“It’s great we’re in the top tier — that’s all good news — but we can do more.”

She loved mentoring high school and college interns, AmeriCorps volunteers, and young professionals at the CHC, and like Ellen, always made time to encourage the younger people in her life. She enjoyed serving on this Scholarship Committee, and would have taken great joy in this year’s recipients! 

❝ We know a force of nature when we see it. We know a force of intellect and compassion when we see it, and Adele, we have never been the same since you showed up on the scene.❞
—Margaret Flinter, CHC Senior VP and Clinical Director

❝ You [Adele] are one of the community’s first responders. When you see a need, you jump in.❞
—CT Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald

Both of our 2020 Scholarship recipients take after Adele and Ellen, in that when they see something needing doing, when they see a way they could make a positive difference, they take the initiative — and just do it.

Enjoy learning about these two remarkable young women here, soon!