In Memoriam: Virginia Hunsaker

IN MEMORIAM:

Virginia ‘Ginnie’ Hunsaker (1930–2021)

It is with great sorrow that The Wooden Floor shares the news about the passing of The Wooden Floor Board Emerita Virginia “Ginnie” Hunsaker. For over 25 years, she has been a friend, mission-advocate and stalwart supporter of The Wooden Floor along with her husband Rich.

Ginnie and Rich began their journey with The Wooden Floor, previously known as Saint Joseph Ballet, in 1994 with a visit to our 4th Street Studio in Santa Ana. As Rich tells the story, Ginnie was invited by a friend to attend one of the organization’s dance classes and she brought Rich with her. When the boys arrived for class, they didn’t look overly enthusiastic for their first ballet class, but by the time the boys left the class, joy and confidence exuded from them.

Ginnie and Rich looked at each other and thought it was pretty miraculous and they began to help. Ginnie served on the Board of Directors from 1994 to 2017, and as CoBoard Chairs with Rich from 1996 to 1999 during our first historic Capital Campaign to raise $6.7M to build our Main Street location. Again, in 2016 Ginnie and Rich served as Honorary Chairs of our Lift Campaign, which raised $20.2M

from 2016-2019. Their multi-million dollar lead gift helped us realize our vision to serve more, deepen our services, as well as build upon our Endowment Fund. Their generosity to our Endowment Fund will especially help to create longterm financial sustainability for our organization, which has always been one of their highest priorities among their many philanthropic pursuits.

Ginnie and Rich both brought their unique gifts and strengths to the Board of Directors. For Ginnie, a former school teacher and ballet dancer, it was her love of children, education, and the arts. Together with The Wooden Floor Founder Beth Burns, Joan and Don Beall, and Ernie and Socie Vasquez, Ginnie and Rich led efforts to build our Main Street location in 1997-1998, which began the evolution towards our place-based, creative youth development model, which continues through to today. The Wooden Floor grew from 150 students to 375, and from 3 full-time employees to 16 from 1999-2009. In the early 2000’s, Ginnie initiated our academic tutoring program to provide more services to our students, including mentorship opportunities, which

helped students improve their grades in order to graduate high school on time. Subsequently, Ginnie chaired our Supplemental Aid Scholarship Program from 2010-2017, which is a special scholarship for alumni of The Wooden Floor who through no fault of their own, were at risk of dropping out of college due to an unforeseen financial challenge. In addition, Ginnie and Rich generously provide scholarships for any student of The Wooden Floor who is accepted to their alma mater, University of Redlands, ensuring any unmet financial need is covered for their entire 4-year university tenure.

They are well recognized for being arts patrons and philanthropists and equally known for being very humble. The Wooden Floor’s dance-making and artistic accomplishments have been a mainstay of their philanthropic efforts due to the quality and excellence that we provide to our students. As fearless advocates of our mission, they have invited many community leaders to attend performances and events over the years. Ginnie was a life-long learner, curious and adventurous. As we grew to have two locations, Ginnie visited in the midst of the construction so she could see our progress. She was

in awe and inspired by our efforts to serve more children.

She cared about our staff, too. For many years, Ginnie and Rich hosted a holiday lunch for full-time staff members to thank them for their efforts. Ginnie would write hand notes to staff members for the holidays, or when she heard someone was having a difficult time. She meant a lot to all of us.

Ginnie will be remembered for being smart, detailoriented, and focused on outcomes, while simultaneously being warm and encouraging with a sense of humor. We are grateful for Ginnie and Rich’s unrelenting commitment, enthusiasm, and support for our mission and providing for the growing number of children who need us.

The Hunsaker family shared with us that there will not be a formal memorial service at this time, due to the pandemic. Condolence notes may be sent to the family at the following address: Hunsaker Management P.O. Box 2423 Santa Ana, CA 92707-0423

Founded in 1983, The Wooden Floor is one of the foremost creative youth development nonprofit organizations in the country. We transform the lives of young people in low-income communities through the power of dance and access to higher education. In Orange County and through national licensed partners, we use a long-term approach grounded in exploratory dance education to foster the confidence and gifts within each child to innovate, communicate, and collaborate – skills necessary for success in The Wooden Floor immediately enroll in higher education. Our students become change agents and beacons of hope within their own families, their neighborhoods, our community, and our world.

TheWoodenFloor.org The Wooden Floor is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.

Federal Tax ID # 33-0299356

Photography by Tony Lattimore Š 2020 The Wooden Floor

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