Family, friends, and fellow Vineyarders are remembering Island philanthropist and Chilmarker Sam Feldman as a beloved Island figure, visionary, and entrepreneur.
Feldman, who died on Wednesday at the age of 95 years, leaves an outsize local legacy as a founder or supporter of many local organizations, including the Chilmark-based National Widowers’ Association, the MV Nonprofit Donors Collaborative, and the Farm-Based Education Network. He was also instrumental in the founding of Island institutions like the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center and the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, as well as Mopeds Are Dangerous, the grassroots movement started in the 1980s.
Islanders poured into the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center on Thursday for Feldman’s funeral, where family and friends portrayed him as a spirited and uncompromisingly outgoing man who cared deeply about his family and the Island community.
Feldman was born in Roanoke, Va., in 1929, and lived for years in Baltimore, Md., where he expanded his Webster Menswear family business while raising daughters Dene and Leigh with his wife, Gretchen. He and his family moved full-time to Chilmark after his retirement.
On Thursday at the Hebrew Center, Rabbi Caryn Broitman spoke to Feldman’s presence on-Island as a resource for a wide range of organizations and institutions.
“He was the ideas man. The we-can-do-this man,” she said. “He would hire the right executive director, bring together the right people, generously give of his own resources, and there you have it.”
“He would do this again and again,” she said, pointing out Feldman’s founding roles at the FARM Institute and Farm-Based Education Network as well as his support for the Hebrew Center, Polly Hill Arboretum, MVYouth, and many more.
“This is honestly incredible,” Broitman said of the list of nonprofits that he had a hand in. “I think it’s the longest list I’ve ever read at a funeral.”
Feldman’s family and friends remembered him as a source of inspiration who challenged everyone he knew to get the most out of life.
“He wanted to wring every last drop out of every moment, and he wanted the same for you, whether you wanted it or not,” grandson Nathaniel Koenig said. “And sometimes it was exhausting, but you never, ever regretted it.”
“Your presence brought joy and happiness to those around you, and I felt that doing so was always the intention you led with,” granddaughter Vera Kelly said in Feldman’s memory.
Leigh Feldman shared a memory of accompanying her father through the New York City marathon, which he completed in his eighties. His affinity for running, she said, is also reflected in his burial clothing.
“It’s nice to know that dad is buried in formal Jewish attire. But underneath that, he is wearing a Chilmark Road Race T shirt. That’s not a joke,” she told the crowd.
Daughter Dene noted her father’s desire to help other Vineyarders. “I know many of you have heard him say, ‘How can I help you?’ And that was never hollow. He meant it, and would become obsessed with doing whatever he could for someone.”
She added that his networking skills were evident in his 6,700 phone contacts.
Notes of condolence may be sent to the Feldman Family, 25 Osprey Lane, Chilmark, MA 02535.
Outside Thursday’s service, friends and colleagues remembered Feldman as a unique individual who not only provided business advice and financial support, but also brought joy and kindness wherever he went.
Richard Paradise, founder of the M.V. Film Center, said that Feldman was instrumental in turning the Vineyard Haven theater into what it is today. Prior, Paradise said, he was content as a volunteer providing film screenings around the Island, which Feldman and his wife would frequent. But local developer Sam Dunn came to Paradise pitching the idea of building the Vineyard Haven movie theater in the early 2010s.
“The first person I turned to was Sam [Feldman],” Paradise said, adding that it wasn’t just for financial support — which Feldman would give — but advice. “He always said — and you’ll hear this from a lot of people — ‘What can I do to help you?”
In 2012, Paradise was able to raise the money and make the theater a reality.
“It became a legitimate business that I could turn around and retire from my day job, and run the film center full-time as executive director. That all happened because of the good fortune of knowing Sam,” Paradise said. “He was such a unique, transformational individua,l especially for the Vineyard community.”
Tim Rich, a former Chilmark Police chief and advocate for banning rental mopeds on the Island, said that Feldman helped him create the Mopeds Are Dangerous action group in the 1980s. The group was the first grassroots effort on the Island — made famous by its bumper stickers — to advocate for banning rentals. “He was the glue that got it going,” Rich said, noting that Feldman stayed active for many years.
“He did a lot of legwork, and he had the knowledge and the energy and the time to do it. He was a great resource and a great man,” Rich said. He added that he would have liked to see mopeds banned on the Island before Feldman passed.
Gerald Jones, a longtime board chair of Martha’s Vineyard Nonprofit Collaborative — which celebrated 20 years last summer — said that Feldman was effective at bringing awareness of local nonprofits to seasonal residents on the Island, and to issues that he cared deeply about in the Vineyard community. He echoed others in saying that Feldman was a visionary who was able to help jump-start a number of Island institutions.
“Sam struck me as someone who had an uncanny ability to create a vision,” Jones said. “He was a good soul, good spirit. He cared about the right things, and the people in his network,” said Jones.
Last year, the Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation created the Sam Feldman Fund to honor his commitment to advancing Island nonprofits.
Donations in Sam’s memory may be made to the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, P.O. Box 692, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568; the National Widowers Organization, 25 Osprey Lane, Chilmark, MA 02535; or Martha’s Vineyard Nonprofit Collaborative, P.O. Box 1018, West Tisbury, MA 02575.
