The Yawkey Foundation Through The Years

Seven months after Tom Yawkey is born, his father (Thomas Austin) dies suddenly. Tom, his mother (Augusta) and sister (Emma) move from Detroit to New York City to live with Augusta’s brother, William Yawkey. William is the co-owner of the Detroit Tigers, and Tom grows up around the game and begins a lifelong love of baseball. At the age of 15, following his mother’s death, Tom is adopted by William and his name is changed to Thomas Austin Yawkey.

Jean Yawkey is born in Brooklyn, New York. Shortly thereafter her parents move to Freeport, New York on Long Island where Jean is raised along with her older brother, George. As a young woman, Jean moves to New York City where she works as a model and salesperson in a fashion house and regularly serves as an active volunteer for the American Red Cross during World War II. 

Tom Yawkey’s uncle, William Yawkey, purchases an interest in land along the shore of Winyah Bay in Georgetown County, South Carolina along with several other investors. Tom visits Georgetown frequently as a child and develops a great love of the outdoors and wildlife.  These visits would lay the foundation for a lifetime of conservation and wildlife preservation efforts. 

Tom Yawkey’s mother, Augusta, dies of the Spanish Influenza. Tom is adopted by his uncle, William Yawkey, but then William dies in early 1919 of influenza, leaving half of his estate to Tom.  Tom attends the Irving School in Marytown, NY and is raised by his guardian, Fredrick DeFoe, Esq.

After inheriting the South Carolina land from his uncle, Tom Yawkey purchases the remaining interests in the South Carolina land from the investors, and then, for the next 50+ years purchases the surrounding tracts of land for the purposes of preserving the land as a wildlife refuge. At Tom’s death in 1976 the property consists of 20,000 acres of managed wetlands, forest openings, ocean beach, longleaf pine forest and maritime forest.

Tom Yawkey purchases the Boston Red Sox. The team would remain under Yawkey ownership until 2002.  During his many years of team ownership, Tom renovates and restores Fenway Park, opens the field to local amateur teams, and supports local recreation — particularly baseball — in the Greater Boston area. Learn more about the true story of Tom Yawkey and the history of the integration of the Boston Red Sox under his ownership.

The Boston Red Sox, under Tom Yawkey’s ownership, field Mel Almada, the first Mexican-born player in Major League history. Almada, a centerfielder, played for the Boston Red Sox for four years, until 1937, and is a member of the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame.

Tom Yawkey makes his first gift to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York to support its mission to preserve the history of baseball and honor excellence in the sport. This support continues today through the work of the Yawkey Foundation and includes grants for construction and renovation, conservation, artifact preservation, collection storage and cataloging, technology and digitization, education programs, and distance learning.

One year after their wedding in Georgetown, South Carolina, Tom and Jean Yawkey make a significant charitable gift to support the construction of Georgetown Memorial Hospital, helping bring a hospital to this rural community. The Yawkeys support the hospital throughout their lives and the Yawkey Foundation continues this support, including a $10 million donation in 2018. The Yawkey Surgical Pavilion was named in Tom and Jean Yawkey’s honor in 2018.

Tom Yawkey begins privately supporting Dr. Sidney Farber. The following year, upon the Boston Braves move to Milwaukee, Tom decides to make Dr. Farber’s Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, otherwise known as the Jimmy Fund, the official charity of the Boston Red Sox.

Tom Yawkey is elected to serve as a Trustee of the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, now known as The Jimmy Fund, founded by Dr. Sidney Farber. Throughout the next half-century, the Yawkeys would serve in various leadership roles on the board of the foundation that would ultimately become the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Tom serves as Trustee until his death in 1976, acting as President from 1960-1969 and Chairman of the Board from 1969-1976. Jean is a Trustee from 1976 until her death in 1992, serving as Chair from 1976 to 1979. Learn more about how the Yawkey Foundation continues to honor Tom Yawkey’s legacy with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Tom Yawkey assembles one of the most competitive and diverse teams in all of the major leagues, the “Impossible Dream Team,” which went on to win 104 games and to win the American League Championship, losing in the seventh game of the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.  This beloved team includes notable players such as Mike Andrews, Tony Conigliaro, Joe Foy, Elston Howard, Jim Lonborg, Rico Petrocelli, Jose Santiago, George Scott, Reggie Smith, Jose Tartabull, John Wyatt, and Carl Yastrzemski.

Tom Yawkey is elected to the Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in honor of his lifetime of service and dedication to the game of baseball, and for his expansive humanitarian efforts.

Tom and Jean Yawkey begin to support Tara Hall Home for Boys, a residential school in Georgetown, South Carolina for boys with academic and behavioral health needs. Tom and Jean purchase and donate 11 acres of land to the nonprofit to serve as a residential campus. The Yawkeys support Tara Hall throughout their lives, maintaining close ties to the organization and the young people it serves.

Primarily from the Red Sox farm system, Tom Yawkey again assembles one of the most competitive and diverse teams in all of the major leagues and the team goes on to win the American League Championship and then to play in what is considered one of the best World Series of all time, but loses to the Cincinnati Reds. The team included beloved Red Sox players Rick Burleson, Cecil Cooper, Dwight Evans, Carlton Fisk, Bill Lee, Fred Lynn, Roger Moret, Rico Petrocelli, Jim Rice, Luis Tiant, Rick Wise, and Carl Yastrzemski.

Tom Yawkey, through his will, donates the 20,000 acres of land on Winyah Bay, in Georgetown, South Carolina to the South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department (now known as the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources) and establishes the Yawkey Foundation with a $10 million trust to fund the maintenance of the property as a wildlife preserve in perpetuity. Over the years, Jean Yawkey adds to what is now known as the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center and the 24,000-acre property in the low country of South Carolina remains dedicated to conservation, research and educational purposes.

In recognition of his many years of dedicated ownership of the Boston Red Sox and valued leadership in the American League, Tom Yawkey is elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Jean Yawkey establishes Yawkey Foundation II in order to ensure that the legacy of thoughtful giving to help those most in-need in the communities that she and Tom called home would continue, in perpetuity, to improve the lives of individuals, families and communities long after their lifetimes.

After many years of support from the Yawkey-owned Boston Red Sox, Jean Yawkey begins to personally support the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and provides the first of many grants to support their programs to enrich and provide opportunities for underserved children. The Yawkey Foundation’s support continues throughout the years including a $3 million grant in 2005 for the renovation and expansion of the Roxbury Clubhouse, a $500,000 grant in 2015 for the renovation and expansion of the South Boston Clubhouse, and a 2018 grant to provide lights for the baseball field located behind the Roxbury Clubhouse.

Jean Yawkey is elected to the Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, the first woman elected to this Board. Jean has a place of pride at the Museum as a part of the permanent exhibit, “Diamond Dreams, Women in Baseball.”

Jean Yawkey purchases property to help establish The Family Inn in Brookline, a home away from home for families of patients receiving medical care in Boston. In 2006, the Family Inn was donated to Boston Children’s Hospital together with a $3 million grant from the Yawkey Foundation, and those proceeds were used to support the new 22-room Yawkey Family Inn at Boston Children’s Hospital on Kent Street in Brookline.  The Yawkey Family Inn has hosted thousands of families visiting Boston for medical care since 2008.

Jean Yawkey establishes the Yawkey Scholarship with the Jackie Robinson Foundation, providing a multi-faceted experience designed to not only address the financial needs of minority students who aspire to attend college but also to guide them through the process of higher education. Since that initial gift, the Yawkey Foundation has continued to support the Jackie Robinson Scholars with more than $600,000 in scholarship funding.

The Yawkey Foundation, in collaboration with the Yawkey-owned Boston Red Sox, establishes the Rookie League and the RBI Baseball Program in Boston. “Reviving Baseball and Softball in Inner Cities”, RBI’s formal name, serves thousands of boys and girls in Boston each year. The league provides equipment, uniforms, field access, and umpires at no cost.

After almost seven decades of Yawkey family ownership, the Boston Red Sox team and assets are sold for a record $700 million. As intended and planned by Tom and Jean Yawkey, 100% of the Yawkey proceeds, nearly $400 million, from this sale flow into the Yawkey Foundation, significantly transforming the Yawkey Foundation and its ability to provide support to the nonprofit organizations in the communities Tom and Jean Yawkey cared for: the Yawkeys called home, Eastern Massachusetts and Georgetown County, South Carolina.

After the sale of the Boston Red Sox, the rich and compassionate legacy of Tom and Jean Yawkey lives on through the Yawkey Foundation, which the couple established in perpetuity to support to individuals and families in-need in the communities that were closest to their hearts in New England and Georgetown County, South Carolina.  The Trustees of the Yawkey Foundation are honored to perpetuate the philanthropic legacy of the Yawkeys, whose eight decades of quiet generosity is sustained to this day through providing resources, opportunity, and dignity to the vulnerable and underserved in the areas of giving that reflected their charitable values: Health Care, Education, Human Services, Youth and Amateur Athletics, Arts and Culture, and Conservation and Wildlife. Please visit the Origin Story timelines for each of these Areas of Giving below to learn more.