GUSD has Dale and Ruth Connell for Arts Council Silicon Valley
ABBY award after generous donations
Gilroy – Longtime residents Dale and Ruth Connell, who have donated more than $1 million to arts and music programs in the Gilroy Unified School District and community, have been nominated for the prestigious ABBY award.
The Arts Council Silicon Valley bestows the Arts & Business Awards to honor philanthropists who make supporting the arts a priority through significant contributions.
“I don’t know that we deserve an award – we’ve just tried to give back to the community what they’ve given to us,” said Ruth Connell, 93. “Through the years, we’ve just noticed that music and arts programs in schools have been cut down, and we think it’s important for children to have those things.”
Ruth and Dale, 92, have been married for 67 years. They’ve made music part of their lives through the years. Ruth taught piano and played the organ at church, and their son sang in a children’s choir and had oboe lessons.
The GUSD nomination outlined the couple’s work with school music programs, South Valley Symphony and community theater. The couple gave $100,000 in the late 1990s to provide elementary summer school music programs.
“GUSD, Gilroy Foundation, and our community hope that Arts Council Silicon Valley will acknowledge this couple’s great contribution to the arts, our youth and our Valley with the ABBY award,” the nomination reads.
But Ruth dismisses such accolades, saying she and her husband really haven’t done anything special – “just tried to help out every once in a while.”
