Lynn De Groot and Donald Voss Giving for the greater good.
L
ynn De Groot embraced many roles over the course of her life: child actress and model, dancer and baton twirler (with nearly 300 awards and trophies to her name), banker, wife, patron of the arts and philanthropist, just to name a few. She also served as director of development at Huntington Hospital from 2003 to 2013. Lynn flourished in this role, and believed so strongly in our work that she also became a member of the Legacy Gift Society (LGS) — a group of donors who contribute to the hospital via estate-related gifts — by arranging her own legacy gift prior to her passing in 2022. “Lynn had a deep understanding of what a hospital can do when it’s fully empowered, and how it can change and save lives,” says her husband, former mayor and councilman of La Cañada Flintridge Donald (Don) Voss. “Her legacy gift was a way for her to make sure that she could continue making a positive impact on the community, even after she was gone.”
Switching gears. Although Lynn was long passionate about philanthropy, it was not always her career. After earning her Master of Business Administration, she worked for decades in banking, with stints at First Interstate Bank, Wells Fargo and U.S. Trust (which was later acquired by Bank of America). By 2003, as Don says, she was no longer having fun. She decided to make a change, and turned to her former banking colleague Jaynie Studenmund, who recently completed a four-year term as chair of the board of directors at Huntington. Jaynie arranged to have
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