Stacey Schlosser

Stacey Schlosser is a jack of all trades. A successful business owner (she operates a "make-your-own" fused glass studio), the president of her New Jersey synagogue, a volunteer with various civic organizations, and the mother of two grown children, Stacey lives a fast-paced life.

When she returns to Chautauqua each summer—which she first visited 25 years ago—Stacey fills her days with a bevy of activities. Yet amidst attending lectures, playing softball, taking mah jongg classes and going to Shabbat at the bell tower she describes this annual pilgrimage as time when she can "slow down."

While enjoying her family's exposure to a range of activities and the freedom it afforded her children during their formative years, Stacey particularly values the sense of community that exists at Chautauqua like nowhere else. It's a place where she is able to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger, where people walking by exchange pleasantries, and where there is a sense of shared identity because of a similarly held belief in the value of this unique community.

By making a legacy gift, Stacey recently joined the Eleanor B. Daugherty Society. She wanted to include Chautauqua in her will because she "knows how hard it is for nonprofits to survive" in changing times. Stacey felt inspired to make a gift for unspecified endowment because she loves Chautauqua's intersections of casual access to the arts, the inclusion of various faith traditions, the safe environment for children, and especially the sense of home and belonging it provides. She is deeply invested in preserving Chautauqua for generations to come, especially when people have so many choices for travel and families may be less rooted to place than in the past.

With several obligations to other causes she cares about and while planning for retirement, Stacey wanted to support Chautauqua in a way that is both meaningful and manageable. For her, a legacy gift is how she can sustain a place she loves "by making a promise to its future."