Melissa Curtin, President & CEO
Community Foundation of Howard County
Annual Dinner & Celebration of Philanthropy Comments
December 9, 2025
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here this evening. It’s an honor for me to serve our community in this role, and I appreciate the opportunity. I am committed to always giving you and our community my very best.
Tonight, we gather not just to celebrate philanthropy—we gather to celebrate the heart of Howard County.
We gather to celebrate kindness, compassion, and the countless acts of generosity that weave together to make the world a better place, and that all begin in the human heart.
Did you know the heart has its own intelligence – its own complex nervous system? The heart processes, learns, remembers, makes decisions, and influences our mental and emotional states. The heart sends way more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.
And our emotions live in our heart – sending signals to our brain about how we are feeling – not the other way around. It all happens very quickly, and it is happening all the time.
This is not just “woo.” Many years of reputable research have found that our hearts generate the body’s strongest electromagnetic field – or the invisible field of energy created by the electrical currents from our heart’s muscle contractions – and that field is detectable up to 10 feet outside the body. Yet, we all know we can connect with our hearts to someone just by thinking about them, even when they are on the other side of the globe.
That same electromagnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic field generated by the brain. This field changes according to your emotions. Even when you don’t think so, others can pick up the quality of your emotions through the electromagnetic energy radiating from your heart.
You know how it goes when you walk into a room, and you can sense that “something” just happened here – it could be joyful, for example, or you may sense that something is awry? Our hearts feel the emotion in the room and from others in every moment.
Our hearts are the most powerful tool we have for living – physically, of course, but energetically, too.
Imagine now, as we sit in this room together, how all of our hearts’ energy is overflowing into those around us. We are all connected by our hearts.
Let’s take a moment to meet in our hearts.
Bring your attention to the center of your chest, your spiritual heart center, and gently send your breath there. And as you do, bring in the emotion of gratitude and just let it sit there as you breathe gently and softly into your heart center. Perhaps it is gratitude for a person, a pet, a place, or an experience.
For some of you, it may be remembering the neighbor who helped you when you needed it. For others, it’s watching a child walk into a new home for the first time after staying in a shelter, or seeing a senior’s face light up when a warm meal arrives. It could be the teacher who stays late, the volunteer who shows up every week, or the business owner who invests not just in profit but in people.
Can you feel that now? I can feel it up here.
Let’s talk now about what generosity does to the human heart. When you give—when you volunteer your time, donate your resources, or simply show up for someone in need—something remarkable happens in your body. Your brains release oxytocin, often called the “love or trust hormone.” Your cortisol – the stress hormone – decreases. You experience what researchers call the “helper’s high”—a genuine feeling of joy and connection.
But here’s what’s even more beautiful: giving doesn’t just benefit the giver. It – creates – ripples.
When you support a food pantry, you’re not just feeding families—you’re reducing anxiety, improving children’s ability to learn, and strengthening parents’ ability to work. When you invest in affordable housing, you’re not just providing shelter—you’re creating stability that allows people to build careers, stay connected to schools and communities, and plan for the future. When you fund youth programs, you’re not just keeping kids busy—you’re shaping who they’ll become, the leaders they’ll be, the world they’ll create.
Philanthropy is good for the heart—yours, mine, and the heart of our entire community. It reminds us that we’re not isolated individuals, but part of something larger. It connects us across lines of difference—gender, economic, racial, generational, geographic. It says:
Your struggle matters to me.
Your life matters to me.
Howard County is only as strong as our commitment to one another.
We rise together.
The Community Foundation of Howard County connects people who care with causes that matter. We partner with donors, nonprofits, community partners, professional advisors, and others to mobilize philanthropic resources that help strengthen Howard County.
When the community foundation was formed by Jim Rouse in 1969, it was established with the belief that communities thrive when people invest in them – not just with money, but with trust, vision, and hope.
Right now, in Howard County, very smart, hardworking, and generous people are focusing on some of the most pressing needs of our time: affordable housing, childcare, food security, education, environment, health, social justice, transportation, and so much more.
These aren’t abstract concepts.
They’re the single mother working two jobs who needs safe, stable housing she can afford. They’re the older adult choosing between medication and groceries. They’re the high school student who has the dream but not the resources to go to college. They’re the family that’s been here for generations and the family that arrived last year, both trying to build a life in a county – and a country – they love.
Howard County is often celebrated—and rightfully so—for our excellent schools, our beautiful parks, and our strong economy. But we also know that beneath that acclaimed reputation, inequities persist. Not everyone has equal access to opportunity. Not everyone has the same resources.
And the truth is, we can be both proud of what we’ve built and committed to doing better.
Tonight, I want to express deep gratitude.
To our donors. Thank you for trusting us with your philanthropic vision. Thank you for believing that Howard County is worth investing in. Whether you’ve been giving for decades or made your first gift this year, no matter the size of your contribution, YOU are changing lives. You contribute to dreams being made possible.
And many thanks to all of our sponsors this evening, without your support, this event would not be possible.
To our community partners—our nonprofit organizations, our government leaders, our business community—thank you. You are on the front lines every single day. You see what needs to be done, and you do it. You are creative, resilient, and deeply committed to this place we call home. Working alongside you is not just our responsibility—it’s our privilege.
To our volunteers and board members—thank you. You give not just your time, but also your financial resources, your expertise, and your wisdom. You show up at meetings and events, serve on committees, ask hard questions, and help us stay true to our mission.
To our staff team—thank you, Dee, Dan, Jay, Juliet, Di, and Buffy—for everything you do every day to inspire and advance philanthropy in Howard County, and for how you do it with such big, open, and enthusiastic hearts.
And to Howard County itself—thank you for being a place where neighbors still know each other’s names. Where people show up when there’s a need. Where people argue about how to solve problems because we actually believe problems can be solved. Where hope isn’t naive—it’s a strategy.
We live in times that can feel overwhelming. Turn on the news, and it’s easy to feel small, powerless, and afraid. The challenges facing our world can seem insurmountable.
But here’s what I know in my heart and in my mind: Change happens in rooms like this. With people like you. In a community that decides, together, what kind of place it wants to be.
Howard County is a microcosm of the world. We have wealth and poverty. We have newcomers and families who’ve been here for generations. We have people of every background, every faith, every political persuasion. And yet, when it matters, we come together.
That’s the hope we have for the world. That each of us will continue to do what you’re doing tonight—show up, give what you can, care for one another, and trust that small acts of love and generosity compound into something transformative.
A community foundation isn’t just about managing philanthropic funds. It’s about stewarding hope. It’s about believing that our best days aren’t behind us—they’re ahead of us, and we’re building them together, one gift, one partnership, one act of courage at a time.
So tonight, as we celebrate philanthropy in Howard County, let’s remember: We’re not just celebrating donations, programs, or statistics. We’re celebrating the human impulse to care. The belief that we belong to each other. The courage to imagine a better world and the commitment to build it.
Together, there’s nothing we cannot do.
Thank you for being here, and thank you for having a heart for Howard County.
See Full Recap and Photo Gallery from Annual Dinner & Celebration of Philanthropy