The Fields Family Foundation
The Fields Family Foundation, a non-profit organization, supports several important charities and causes. The Foundation generously contributes to the following areas:
Children's Causes
Law Enforcement
Medical Research
Agricultural and Equine
Children's Causes
Good Shepherd Services
For the past two decades, The Fields Family Foundation has supported the Good Shepherd Services, a non-profit organization that provides social, residential and foster care services to struggling children and their families. Good Shepherd Services is concentrated in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn.
Over these 20 years, Richard Fields has underwritten holiday celebrations for many of Good Shepherd's children and parents alike. These parties have featured visits to the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes at legendary Radio City Music Hall; toy soldiers, puppeteers, and the legendary giant piano at FAO Schwarz; and, just this year, Santa by sleigh at the Bronx Zoo.
In 2008, CS 102 Elementary School in the Bronx launched its new Arts Academy with the help of CS 102 alumnus and generous supporter of the Good Shepherd Organization, Richard T. Fields. Through a grant from The Fields Family Foundation, Good Shepherd Services has developed, implemented, and now manages a full service music and arts program for CS 102 in the Parkchester area of the Bronx.
For the first time at this school, students will have the opportunity to develop their artistic talents choosing to study music (Suzuki violin, clarinet or piano), dance (creative movement or ballroom dance), theater, or visual arts. The CS 102 Arts Academy infuses arts instruction into the regular school-day work and offers additional arts programming to students participating in the in-school and after-school programs. Good Shepherd has partnered with Mindbuilders Creative Arts Center for some of the music and dance instruction and with Dreamyards for arts, theatre and teacher education.
Over 200 students enrolled for the 2008-2009 inaugural year and had the opportunity to perform all that they have learned at the end of each school quarter. In the program’s second year, over 600 students were enrolled proving the program’s tremendous draw with the families and the community. The next phase of the program will be to build on the current after school and in school program and to convert the entire school into a music and arts lab that uses these arts in every area of academic instruction.
For more information on our partners at CS 102 please visit:
To learn more about Good Shepherd services please visit, www.GoodShepherds.org.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
As a member of the board at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Richard Fields has been active in fighting for and protecting America’s abused and exploited children. The NCMEC has been a champion of the AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert system which alerts the general public, media, and law enforcement agencies nation-wide after a child has been abducted or is missing.
To learn more about the center or to help please visit, www.MissingKids.com.
Law Enforcement
New York Police Foundation
As a native of the Bronx, Fields is a longtime supporter of the New York City Police Department. Through the Fields Family Foundation, Fields supports the New York City Police Foundation- the only group recognized by the New York City Police Department as an authorized fundraiser. With the help of the Fields Family Foundation $1.5 million gift, the New York City Police Foundation launched its first College Loan Reimbursement program designed to enhance the New York City Police Department’s ability to recruit and retain qualified candidates. More recently, Richard Fields was appointed to serve on the Board.
Medical Research
University of Rochester Medical School
The Fields Family Foundation supports medical research on Muscular Dystrophy through its $7.1 million gift to University of Rochester Medical Center to create the Fields Center for FSHD & Neuromuscular Research. The gift – the largest private donation for a specific disease program in the Medical Center’s history – will create a research and clinical center of excellence for facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD), a form of muscular dystrophy. The center will be an international collaboration between the URMC Department of Neurology and Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Fields has a personal family connection to FSHD and understands the impact it has on families throughout the United States and the world. The University of Rochester has long been a leader in muscular dystrophy research and his hope is that the Fields Center will be a leader in innovation and research for many years to come.
To visit the Fields Center for FSHD and Neuromuscular Research and to learn more about FSHD: click here.
To view the Press Release please, click here.
Agricultural and Equine
Farm Aid
Richard T. Fields has served on the board of Farm Aid since 2007. Farm Aid is a non-profit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land. Farm Aid accomplishes this mission by promoting food from Family Farms and by expanding the Good Food Movement which consists of growing the number of Americans purchasing family farm-identified, local, organic or humanely-raised food.
In 2007, The Fields Family Foundation was a proud sponsor of the Farm Aid Annual Benefit Concert held for the first time in New York City. Willie Nelson joined board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews on the Farm Aid stage, asking concertgoers to choose food from family farms. Farm Aid has raised more than $30 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture.
To learn more about Farm Aid or to Donate, visit FarmAid.Org
Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation
The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) and Suffolk Downs, through the support of the Fields Family Foundation, have established a home for retired racehorses at the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Farm in Plymouth, MA, where inmates from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility will care for the horses as part of the facility’s extensive vocational program.
In November 2009, the first retired thoroughbreds from Suffolk Downs arrived at the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances at Plymouth County Sheriff’s Farm, where they were brought to their new stalls in a barn renovated by inmates. They will be joined by additional retirees in the future.
Led by principal owner and horse enthusiast Richard Fields, Suffolk Downs has demonstrated a commitment to the lifetime care of Thoroughbreds once their racing careers are over, becoming the first racetrack in the country to implement a strict anti-slaughter policy for owners and trainers with horses stabled on its grounds.
Founded in 1982, the TRF’s mission is to save Thoroughbred horses no longer able to compete on the racetrack. In pursuing this mission, the TRF has found an ancillary purpose to provide much needed and successful programs for incarcerated men, women and juveniles. This unique program began at the Wallkill Correctional Facility in New York and has been replicated at facilities in Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, Iowa, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland and now Massachusetts.
Richard Fields, Diana Pikulski, Executive Director of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr welcome Red Miah to his new home at Second Chances Farm
American Quarter Horse Youth Assistance Program
American Quarter Horse Youth Association is the largest, single-breed youth association in the world and provides a variety of programs to youth, 18-and-under, which encourage participation with the American Quarter Horse breed. The Association continues to be the leader in youth developmental programs, as evidenced by other breed associations which have taken these same concepts and made them available to young people in other organizations.
Formerly known as the American Junior Quarter Horse Association, the youth association held its first meeting in August 1970 in Amarillo, Texas. AQHYA began with 3,000 Members and even at the beginning of its history had an international following with representatives from Australia and Canada attending the first meeting. Today, AQHYA boasts a membership of more than 30,000 young people, including Members from The United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia and South America.
Each year in August, AQHYA competitors and their families converge on Fort Worth, Texas, for the annual AQHYA World Championship Show. The pinnacle event for AQHYA competitors, this invitational event draws more than 1,800 youth from across the United States and around the globe, making it the largest horse show in the world devoted exclusively to youth.
In 2007, the Fields Family Foundation formalized its annual support to the AQYHA, creating the Youth Assistance Program. This program created a fund to award scholarships to potential participants of the AQYHA Championship Show giving them the financial support needed to attend the annual World Championship Show. Since the program's inception, the fund has sponsored over 200 young riders.
Here are letters from some of our participants:
