Arts & Culture Origin Story

Tom Yawkey purchases the Boston Red Sox. During his many years of team ownership Tom renovates and restores Fenway Park, making the ballpark one of Boston’s most prized cultural attractions.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opens in Cooperstown, New York and Tom Yawkey makes his first gift to support the Hall of Fame’s mission to preserve the history of baseball and honor excellence in the sport.

Tom Yawkey donates bleachers to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to be used at Doubleday Field and provides resources for the improvement and maintenance of the Cooperstown field.

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Tom Yawkey donates all of the proceeds from Opening Day 1964 to the JFK Memorial Library. The Yawkey Foundation, in subsequent years, is one of the sustaining benefactors of the Dorchester library, which is dedicated to the legacy of the nation’s 35th President.

Tom Yawkey donates a collection of significant baseballs dating from 1911-1940, many of which are autographed by Hall of Fame members, to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Jean Yawkey begins an annual tradition of supporting the Museum of Science’s education programs for school and youth groups, enabling thousands of children and families to visit the Museum each year.

Jean Yawkey and the Yawkey Foundation make a $1.3 million gift to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to increase exhibition space and construct the Grandstand Theater. In 1989 the Museum celebrated its Golden Anniversary with the opening of the new Fetzer-Yawkey wing and Grandstand Theater.

Jean Yawkey underwrites the Boston exhibit of the Jackie Robinson Foundation national tour, welcoming thousands of visitors to learn about Jackie Robinson’s life and legacy downtown.

Jean Yawkey begins to annually fund WGBH in order to provide closed captioning of Boston Red Sox games across the New England area, providing access to baseball for thousands of hearing-impaired fans across the region.

In honor of her love for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its festive Pops concerts, Jean Yawkey and the Yawkey Foundation begin to fund the Boston Symphony Orchestra and in particular, its outreach programs bringing access to the arts to underserved youth.

Jean Yawkey provides a $1.5 million grant for the expansion and further development of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Jean Yawkey provides initial funding for a remodeling of the New England Aquarium’s original Touch Tank. Jean continues to support the Aquarium over the years with grants to support field trips and other educational programming.

The Yawkey Foundation begins to provide programming support to Raw Arts Work in Lynn, bringing arts access, youth programming, college access and career readiness, and leadership development to underserved youth from Lynn and surrounding communities.

The Yawkey Foundation provides a $7 million transformational capital grant to WGBH to support its new headquarters and state-of-the-art broadcasting complex in Brighton, helping to support WGBH to fulfill its mission of educating, informing and inspiring the communities they serve. The Yawkey Atrium and Theater hosts a wide variety of community gatherings, panel discussions, cultural festivals, and arts events and screenings. 

After a decades-long partnership between the Yawkey Foundation and the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the Yawkey Foundation provides a $3 million transformational capital grant for the establishment of the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York City which will memorialize the athletic and social achievements of Jackie Robinson and serve as a venue that promotes dialogue and a goodwill approach to our nation’s social challenges.

The Yawkey Foundation supports the Boston Children’s Museum with a $5 million transformational capital grant as part of a major expansion and renovation that transforms both the Children’s Museum and its waterfront site on Fort Point Channel. The Yawkey Center for Children & Learning is home to a new light-filled Art Studio and cultural exhibitions such as the Japanese House, Shapiro KidStage, and Boston Black: A City Connects.

The Yawkey Foundation sponsors the 2007 traveling Baseball in America exhibit in conjunction with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The exhibit stops in Boston at the Museum of Science where visitors see more than 200 original and archival photographs that bring the game to life. In addition, the Museum of Science develops additional hands-on exhibits to help visitors discover the science of baseball.

The Yawkey Foundation begins a multi-year strategic investment project with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to preserve and protect the Museum’s historical baseball collection. These grants, totaling more than $1.1 million, provide for conservation, artifact preservation, collection storage and cataloging, technology and digitization as well online access for education and research.

The Yawkey Foundation provides a $2 million transformational capital grant for the renovation of the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium. The Yawkey Coral Reef Center, at the top of the four-story tank, offers once-in-a-lifetime, educational views into a unique aquatic world.

The Yawkey Foundation provides a $500,000 strategic investment grant to the Boch Center for the Performing Arts to upgrade the theater’s HVAC system for improved energy efficiency and temperature control for this historic performance venue.

The Yawkey Foundation supports the construction of the Yawkey Gallery on the Charles River at the Museum of Science with a $10 million transformational capital grant. This permanent exhibit connects the two major wings of the museum and highlights the engineering decisions that impact the Charles River and the animals that live in the natural river environment. 

The Yawkey Foundation supports the construction of Wildcat Station at the EcoTarium in Worcester with a strategic investment grant of $500,000. This exciting mountain lion exhibit invites visitors to experience intimate encounters with one of the region’s most magnificent and elusive species all while providing opportunities for young people to learn about the natural world.