Greenwich family gives in a big way with nonprofits

Members of the Song family and children in South Africa.

BY PATRICIA ESPINOSA

Imagine stepping out of your busy life for a year to travel the world.

That”™s exactly what Greenwich residents Anna and Ken Song did when they pulled their three children out of school to spend a year volunteering with nonprofit organizations in South Africa and the Dominican Republic, a trip they say was not only amazing but life-changing for their family.

“My kids say the thing they learned most is that community makes the biggest difference. You can be stripped of all the materials things, but if you have a community ”” people helping out and loving one another ”” that actually goes a long way,” Anna Song says with a smile. “There”™s something wonderful about the give-and-take we all witnessed.”

About five years ago, her family had planned to spend the summer volunteering in Peru. They were set to go, but a week before leaving, Ken, who owned his own hedge fund, announced to his wife that he couldn”™t leave his company at its height. Anna was disappointed.

“I think that”™s when both of us realized that it”™s not ever going to be the perfect time,” she says. “We kept thinking there”™d be a perfect time, you work really hard and it will allow us to do these things we”™d always planned.”

That, she says, is a complete fallacy.

Still, when their oldest child was in ninth grade (Stephen is currently a junior at Greenwich High School, and sisters Julianna and Christine are a sophomore and a third-grader respectively at Greenwich Academy), the couple realized they only had a few years before he”™d be out of the house. With that, Ken closed his hedge fund and the couple pulled their children out of school to embark on the trip.

While they had always given money to nonprofits, this time the couple wanted to give in a way that was more personal, working alongside the people they were trying to help.

Ken Song in the Dominican Republic with a newfound friend.

“That was what we really wanted to do and spend time with our kids and infuse them with the understanding that the world is really big and you”™re incredibly lucky. And don”™t worry about half the things people are worried about here. ”¦You”™ve already hit the lottery of life.” Adds Anna: “That”™s why we were willing to step out (of our lives) because we already felt these are all degrees of success, everybody here is more than fine.”

They started with lofty plans.

“Because Ken and I are both MBAs (she got hers at Harvard and he got his from Columbia, where the two met during their undergraduate work), we thought we could go places and do mighty work in the finance area. We”™re going to do big projects where we can raise tons of money. We had all those plans and, of course, those were the ones that didn”™t pan out.”

In August 2011, the Song family stepped out of their comfort zone to travel to a remote area of South Africa and volunteer at Lily of the Valley Orphanage, which serves more than 120 HIV-infected children. Of all the places they visited, it was there the Songs felt most profoundly moved.

“The big difference with Lily of the Valley is that for the first time, those kids are not going to die, they”™re going to actually age out of the orphanage.

“Ken and I have been working throughout this year with a group of volunteers to partner with Lily on multiple levels to improve their business model, improve operations, help with their tomato branding and secure investors for their projects,” Anna says.

And thanks to their teenage son, who single-handedly raised $40,000 via numerous grants, Lily was able to spearhead a second project called aquaponics ”” a cutting-edge method of growing crops and fish together in a recirculating system.

With their belief that every gift, no matter how small, can have an effect on a child”™s life, the Songs established The Tabgha Love Foundation to benefit the children of Lily of the Valley Orphanage. (It”™s named for the place where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.) The family covers all operating expenses so that 100 percent of donations go directly to the orphanage.

Next on the itinerary was the Dominican Republic where the Songs traveled to Santa Domingo and Neyba to meet with the World Vision kids that their children had been sponsoring for 10 years. What they found there was shocking.

“I will say that they were blown away by the poverty and how what they thought was insignificant was life-altering for (the World Vision kids),” she says about her children”™s reaction.

“It rattled my daughter (Julianna”™s) sensibilities that people could live like that. But (the World Vision Kids) had a sense of community and they were happy. That”™s what really shocked them.”

As a pastor”™s daughter growing up in Bethesda, Md., Anna describes her childhood as being radically different from most people, including that of her husband, who grew up more traditionally.

“It was a different way to live,” she says. “There was always someone living in our home. My father, being a pastor, spent most of his time not necessarily focusing on us but focusing on people who just really needed a lot. One of the things that was profoundly different was we had the sensibility that whatever community you”™re in should actually be impacted positively by you being there.”

That guiding principle has not only affected her family but her community, too.

In 2004, Anna co-founded Harvard Business School Club of Connecticut Community Partners, which helps nonprofits in the state with pro-bono consulting by Harvard Business School alumni and scholarship programs. Currently, she is most involved with Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management ”” a scholarship that sends a CEO of a nonprofit to an intensive, one-week program taught by leading Harvard Business School faculty and attended by nonprofit executives from around the world. Past scholarship recipients have included the Bruce Museum; High Hopes Therapeutic Riding in Old Lyme; the Nathaniel Witherell senior facility in Greenwich; the Greenwich Historical Society; the Stamford Museum & Nature Center; the American Red Cross in Farmington and the New Canaan-based Silvermine Guild Arts Center.

“I think most people think of their lives as a trajectory of you”™re learning, you”™re earning and then you”™re returning,” Anna says. “You”™ve got to focus on those three areas and the returning is always at the end. In my life, I”™ve woven the returning through and I firmly believe that makes a profound difference in terms of happiness, gratitude and thankfulness.”

Patricia Espinosa is a writer for WAG magazine, sister publication to the Fairfield County Business Journal. For more information about The Tabgha Love Foundation, visit nogifttoosmall.com.