Father and daughter establish fund in memory of her mother because “healing is helping other people…”.
Stephen C. Robinson is a Trust board member and Of Counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP. He is a former U.S. District Judge in the Southern District of New York and U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut. He has a fund at The Trust with his daughter, Dr. Victoria Robinson, who is also a member of The Trust’s Giving Collective.
“My two older brothers and I were raised by our mother, Yvonne, in the Marcy housing projects in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Like virtually everyone in the projects, we grew up in difficult economic circumstances. What drove us out of those circumstances was our mother, who was one of the smartest people I have ever known. If she had been born 25 years later, she would have been the federal judge. Because of the power of her intelligence and vision for what we could be, all three of us went to college.
As important as education was to my mother, it was equally important that we remember that the opportunities we had only came because there were people who marched, fought, bled, and died for people like us. I absorbed those messages, and my mission became to develop myself as fully as I could so that I could give back as much as I could.
That mission is fundamental to who I am and to how I’ve tried to live my life and raise my daughter, Victoria. My wife died when Victoria was 11 years old. Understandably, we were devastated. After one of many sleepless nights, Victoria said a simple sentence that would take us out of our downward spirals and set our path forward. She said: ‘We need to find a way to turn Mommy’s death into something good for someone else.’ In that moment I understood that she got the meaning of life: if you have good luck, you pay it forward; if you have bad luck, you turn it into something good for someone else. My 11-year-old daughter understood that the way to healing is helping other people, even through your pain.
Victoria, now Dr. Robinson, is the donor advisor of the fund we opened at The Trust in honor of her mother. The Trust is perfect for us because its expert staff provides information that makes us smarter about the needs of New Yorkers and the organizations addressing those needs and creating the change we hope to see. Investment in The Trust is a natural extension of what my mother taught me, and my daughter understood. The Trust helps you find opportunities to do something good for someone else.”