Community Corner

In Heavenly Plea for Direction, Larchmont Man Finds Calling

The founder of the Resource Foundation recalls meager roots, powerful inspiration

When things weren't going as planned, Larchmont resident Loren Finnell looked up at the sky and yelled at God, asking him to make good use of him. It was 1987.

He had recently started a non-profit organization out of the basement of his Larchmont home and raised nearly $60,000 in the first year, but that was not enough. "It seems that God heard me," he said during a recent conversation at Gusano Loco in Mamaroneck.

Twenty-two years later, Mr. Finnell's Resource Foundation has raised a total of $44 million and assisted development programs all over Latin America and the Caribbean. Among its corporate donors are Citi Foundation, Continental Airlines, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation, and Pfizer Inc. The story behind it is one of conviction and fate.

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"I was what people call a 'hick,'" recalled Finnell. Raised in a town of 4,000 habitants in Indiana, he used to work in the fields during the summer to pay his way through college. When he was a freshman, he received a letter from his church. He doesn't know how it got to him, or what happened to the sender after that, but that letter changed his life.

"I expect something significant from you," read the letter. "I pray you will find life rich and satisfying as you find your place of work and service. God has need of such as you." When Mr. Finnell remembers that moment he is overwhelmed with emotions. He didn't realize then how the letter would inspire him, but he kept it. And he keeps it to date.

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A few years later, Mr. Finnell came across an article about the founding of the Peace Corps. "It was then that I said I would join them," he said. Two weeks after graduating in accounting from Manchester College in Indiana, he packed a bag and left for Bozeman, Montana, where Peace Corps training would begin. 

"Except for a trip to Boston, I had never been more than 150 miles away from home." said Mr. Finnell. He was part of the third group to ever join the Peace Corps. 

Mr. Finnell completed the second part of the training in Mexico, where he was put to the test at every opportunity, and eventually reached Ecuador, his final destination for the next two years. His wife Pilar was a social secretary for the mayor of Ibarra, a city in northern Ecuador.

"And it was then that I met her, wearing the same jacket that I had worn every day during my trip," said Finnell. Mrs. Finnell later forced him to wash his jacket, a river of mud flowing from it, she recalled laughing.

Mr. and Mrs. Finnell got married in August 1966. They experienced the horrors of the Vietnam War from Laos, where Mr. Finnell worked from 1966-68, and later went back to Ecuador, where their daughter Lorena was born.

The Finnells arrived in Larchmont in 1972. Mr. Finnell initially worked with Private Agencies Collaborating Together (PACT), a non-profit organization he had co-founded, and then did consulting work on his own. He was traveling 70 percent of the time, mainly to Latin America. It was then that the idea to create the Resource Foundation came about.

"I got to know local institutions in every country, to see their needs, but also the advantage that being in the region represented," said Mr. Finnell. They knew the people, the issues, the language, the culture, but they lacked the resources." Realizing that he had the contacts that could help those organizations meet their needs, and being tired of spending most of his time outside of his home, Mr. Finnell decided that he would become the bridge between donors worldwide and development efforts in Latin America. 

The Resource Foundation had its first board meeting in 1987. The Finnells had started with zero money as their daughter was going through college. That is when Mr. Finnell yelled at God, and it seems like some Larchmont residents heard him as well.

Silvia Muldoon, a friend of Mrs. Finnell, heard their story and said she would give them a stage for a fundraiser in her Larchmont home. She and her husband Tom invited all their friends and neighbors, including the then mayor of Larchmont. That was the first time the Finnells talked to people about their project.

Lucy Maloney, a Larchmont resident, joined the board early on and, along with her late husband Joe, hosted the first large fundraiser in 1990. "He was a hard man to say no to," said Mrs. Maloney during a recent phone conversation. "He had an interesting ability to put all of us together and [make us] believe in his dream." 

Mrs. Maloney was particularly interested in Mr. Finnell's belief in not just giving people resources, but teaching them how to make the best of them. "It wasn't just a hand out,"  she said. "He was not just asking for a check for people to send to a country. He was believing in the education of the people in some kind of natural resource." 

One hundred new donors joined the foundation as a result of that event, according to Mr. Finnell's growth chart. 

Over twenty years later, the Resource Foundation has grown so much that it had to move out of the Finnells' basement and to New York City offices. Six of its 22 current board members still live in Larchmont, however, and another few in Westchester. Its individual donors, about 3,000, are in all 50 states, and their donations reach approximately 150 non-profit agencies in 25 countries.

In 2006, the National Peace Corps Association chose Mr. Finnell to receive the Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service. Two years later, he received a Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa degree from his college in Manchester, Ind.

Talking about the letter that her husband received as a teenager, Mrs. Finnell doesn't know what compelled him to hang on to it for decades. "He usually throws everything out, bank statements, health insurance papers, everything," she said.  "Those are the angels that God sends you."


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