The Greenwich Affordable Housing Trust (Trust Fund) wishes to acknowledge, and express its sincere gratitude for, a generous gift of $70,000 received from the Danish American Club, Inc.
This donation is the largest single gift to the Trust Fund to date and will provide significant resources to advance the work of the Trust Fund.
Through an ordinance enacted in 2021, the purpose of the Trust Fund is the preservation of existing and the creation of new affordable rental and home ownership housing opportunities in Town, consistent with the current Greenwich Plan of Conservation and Development, the Affordable Housing Plan, and applicable General Statutes of Connecticut. To date, the Trust Fund has provided subordinate loans to two fully approved residential developments that will collectively provide 55 affordable rental housing units. The Trust Fund has loan commitments outstanding to an additional four approved developments that will add another 82 affordable units in Town.
The Danish American Club began its long history in 1901 when Milo Mead, a member of one of Greenwich’s founding families, sold a vacant plot of land in Byram to the Club. Marianne Rasch Tierney, the Club’s treasurer, quotes the Club’s history, saying that, quite rightly, Milo was not a Dane but had the heart of a Dane.
Over the intervening 125 years, the Club has maintained a strong and unifying presence in Greenwich. It has offered both social and religious support not only to the Danish brotherhood and sisterhood societies but also to all new immigrants arriving from other European nations in the early twentieth century.
The Trust Fund applauds the gracious and ongoing role of the Danish American Club in making Greenwich a welcoming community and will do everything in its power to continue that unifying spirit of public interest and community welfare.
Donations to the Greenwich Affordable Housing Trust Fund are tax deductible and demonstrate a donor’s commitment to the Town’s objective of expanding rental and home ownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income households.