The celebratory event was held at the Salem Community Center on June 10. Community Foundation Chief Operating Officer Brittany Maniscalco said the setting was appropriate since the community center received $9.5 million in funding from the foundation for its construction and it remains the beneficiary of five of the foundation’s funds, serving as “a lasting testament to the enduring legacy and value of philanthropic investment in our community.”

“The Salem Community Foundation has spent 60 years investing in this community and none of it would have been possible without the dedication and generosity of the people in this room, and the foresight of the generation that came before us,” Maniscalco said.

Tonti echoed Maniscalco’s sentiments, discussing the foundation’s history from its initial incorporation in 1966 with an investment of $2,000. Tonti said that roughly six months later the foundation gave out its first grant in 1967, $200 for the Salem Public Library to purchase cultural books, and that by then its funds had grown to $17,000. That figure has continued to grow in the intervening decades to a total fund balance of around $89 million, and a total investment of more than $70 million into project benefiting Salem.

“Today I see that not really as philanthropic, not as a charity, but as an investment in our community…because everything you do is connected to everyone else in your community, Tonti said. “Recently we passed a milestone. This is our last year we’ll have to pay on the bond issue [for the community center] and this place will be free of any encumbrance.”

Shown are Salem Community Center Executive Director Heather Young, left, and Community Foundation President John Tonti. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Tonti also discussed the foundation’s $10 million contribution in 2023 to the construction of the Salem City School District’s new $57 million K-8 school building. He said that when the district’s initial attempt to pass the property tax levy required to fund the school’s construction failed in May of 2023, he was approached by his board of directors about the possibility of contributing to the project to decrease the overall tax burden on residents, something that no other community foundation in Ohio has ever done.

“They said to me, ‘What do you think we can do? How much money do we have? Maybe we can help out.’ We talked about coming up with $5 million to reduce the real estate tax burden for the school. Somehow that got bumped up to $10 million. We worked out a situation where we give them $1 million a year and keep the other $9 million until the next year and so on and so forth,” Tonti said.

The event also featured remarks from two of the foundation’s partners from PNC Bank, which oversees the foundation’s investments, Ted Schmidt and Barry Hollis. Schmidt and Hollis both described working with Tonti for more than 30 years has been a pleasure and that he had become a close friend. They credited the foundation’s excellence to Tonti’s expertise and management.

“Over the years I’ve worked with probably hundreds of foundations, and I have probably seen the financials of thousands of people. I can say what I admire most about [the foundation] is the leadership and expense control is phenomenal. When we look at expenses as a percentage of assets, you probably at half of what other nonprofits are, and that helps to grow the portfolio and makes the asset base larger,” Hollis said.

Their sentiments were echoed by Community Foundation Board of Directors members George W.S. Hays, Rob McCulloch and Mark Equizi, who thanked Tonti for his decades of service to the foundation as treasurer from 1981 to 1986, vice president from 1986 to 1992, and as president for the last 34 years.

They were joined in thanking Tonti by Salem Community Center Foundation President Matthew Butts and Community Center Executive Director Heather Young, who together announced that the Salem CenterPlex, located at 1028 N. Ellsworth Ave., would be renamed in Tonti’s honor as the John E. Tonti CenterPlex.

“For 34 years John has led this organization with a quiet, effective demeanor, and he has dealt with a very divergent group of personalities and done it well and without rancor…and he’s done this for 40 years without any compensation,” McCulloch said.

(Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown from left are Salem Police Sgt. Steve LaRose, Community Foundation Chief Operating Officer Brittany Maniscalco, Sgt. Mike Garber and Patrolman Tanor English. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown is Salem Community Foundation President Chief Operating Officer Brittany Maniscalco. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown is Salem Community Foundation President John Tonti. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown is Ted Schmidt. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown from left are Community Foundation Board of Directors Members George W.S. Hays, Rob McCulloch and Mark Equizi. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

Shown are Salem Community Center Executive Director Heather Young, left, and Community Center Foundation President Matthew Butts. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)