Giving Forward Podcast: ‘Bridging Differences’ with Cindy Edelman

Nina Waters 

Hi, Cindy, thank you for joining us.

Cindy Edelman 

You’re very welcome, Nina.

Nina Waters 

It’s good to be with you this morning. So we’re gonna start with how we first met in 2001, when you were a trustee at The Community Foundation. I had just come on as the Vice President of Administration and Community Leadership – it’s a mouthful! We were a different foundation then. I want to talk a little bit about where The Community Foundation was then, and where you thought it needed to go.

Cindy Edelman 

I recall that the Foundation at that point had less than $60 million in assets and something around $9 million in annual grant-giving by 2002. And at the end of 2021, we had more than $630 million in assets and had given away more than $43 million in grants. So I would say that…you remember that ad “you’ve come a long way, baby”? I would say that about The Community Foundation.

Nina Waters 

So you have a lot of choices, like other donors in Northeast Florida, about where you want to invest your dollars and how you want to invest those dollars. You have a family foundation, but you also have a fund at The Community Foundation. Talk a little bit about why you have a fund at The Community Foundation and how you think as an organization we bring value to a philanthropist.

Cindy Edelman 

For Dan and myself, there are really three main areas that we feel that The Community Foundation brings value to our philanthropy, and certainly others, as well. One is, of course, the expertise that you and your staff certainly know where the needs in the community are. So your expertise on subjects, such as public education reform or affordable housing or quality of life issues they’re completely so impactful and valuable. The second is, of course, the anonymity in giving. It’s really nice to be able to have the luxury, if you will, of being able to give anonymously through The Community Foundation.

Nina Waters 

And now with your [IRS Form] 990 and the internet, people have access to everything about your private foundation.

Cindy Edelman 

This is true. And as a result, you get bombarded with a lot of requests. The third thing is – and I like the third thing the very best – that’s the leveraging of one’s resources. If you think about it, being able to join like-minded donors and invest in big projects, that can make such a huge difference. And the other thing I like about the leveraging is, of course, the challenge giving. Do you remember when, this was during the time when the state was matching money for education…remember QZAB [Qualified Zone Academy Bonds]? I have used that, and it was right…was it $100,000…and you got a million dollars back or something? Well, I mean, it was crazy.

Nina Waters 

So communities just had to raise a specific amount of money, and then you got a 10-fold benefit from the state. But the challenge was at the time, our school district really didn’t have a history of raising private dollars like other public school districts. So one of the things that we were able to bring to the table with the donor collaborative is how can we collect those donors, raise that money, and have Duval County be able to get some of this state money that we never could compete for before? And it really helped to wire all of the elementary schools and middle schools.

Cindy Edelman 

Some of them didn’t have the overhead. They didn’t have internet.

Nina Waters 

They didn’t have internet, right. As they started bringing laptops in and things like that, it really limited the ability of some of the inner-city schools to be able to have the technology that that newer schools had. So that was…I forgot about that…that was an excellent example. And I loved your examples of why a community foundation. It’s always good for me to hear that that’s how donors feel.

Cindy Edelman 

The other point that I really want to drive home is just how skilled and knowledgeable your staff is. I mean, you’ve done a fantastic job of assembling the staff you have.

Nina Waters 

When you became chair of The Community Foundation, you really wanted to focus on board diversity. And I think it was very important then and it’s very important now. Talk a little bit about what you think works well about The Community Foundation Board and what you hope others can learn from our governance structure.

Cindy Edelman 

So I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. And it really boils down to the fact that you’ve led and fostered an atmosphere of respect, of integrity, of best practices and policies. And think that it permeates through the whole organization and onto the board. I’ve watched you, over the 20 years, lead the board, and you’re really quite masterful at it, I have to say. You never take any credit for yourself. And it’s always directed to either your staff or your board members. And you practice what you preach; you walk the talk, as they say. We need people from all geographic areas that we serve, we need people who look like the people we serve, and we need people who don’t think like us. And I think that goal has reached fruition. I mean, I wish it were more gender balanced in terms of male/female. But that’s always so tricky in terms of time, you know – when people’s board service stops and others start.

Nina Waters 

On the topic of board diversity, we worked hard on that during your tenure as board chair, and it made a difference. We really worked and had really different ideas about how to think about it because we hadn’t really made a lot of progress in that area. So you decided that we were going to do some different things, so that we didn’t get the same result. Talk a little bit about that.

Cindy Edelman 

Well, I don’t know if you remember, but we asked Eleanor Gay, one of the loveliest people I’ve ever known, and she was on the board at the time. We asked her if we could take her to lunch, and if we could pick her brain about some African American potential names for the board. And in her inimitable way, she invited us to have lunch at her home in Grand Park. You picked me up and made our way to Eleanor’s home. And we talked about, wonder what we’re going to have for lunch. You know, we were hungry, and we were talking about that. And she welcomed us warmly into her home, and we sit down, the beautiful table is set. And she brings us a plate of a dish that I usually see about once a year, which is called kugel, and I thought, oh my goodness. This kugel looks so familiar. Kugel is a dish usually served on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And in fact, kugels can be sweet or they can be made with potatoes or they can be made with noodles. And this particular one was made with noodles. And it reminded me of the one that I usually make. So we enjoy our kugel for lunch. And then she served us some dessert, and she gave us a few ideas. And before we left, I said, “Eleanor, could I see the recipe that you have for your kugel, it was so delicious.” And she said, “Of course!” And she got up and went to her kitchen and came out. And the paper she showed me had this on it: Cindy Stein’s sister Patty’s Kugel. And I went, Oh, my gosh! And I went, “Eleanor!”

[Eleanor Gay (1919-2015) was a teacher, counselor, college administrator, program consultant, and community activist. She served on the board of The Community Foundation from 2000-2012, and she won an EVE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. She was known for her tireless, lifelong efforts to improve the community and see that all residents had improved services and opportunities.]

Nina Waters 

Because formerly you were Cindy Stein.

Cindy Edelman 

But she didn’t know that. You and I laughed all the way back to The Community Foundation. It was so funny.

Nina Waters 

And wasn’t it just like Eleanor that she would want to serve something from your tradition in her home?

Cindy Edelman

Yes, yes!

Nina Waters

She was amazing. She was on the staff of The Community Foundation, as well, and then became a trustee. And she’s someone that was probably engaged with us for more than 20 years in one capacity or another. That was quite a memory, and we got a great list of names actually.

Cindy Edelman

We did. I think that the other thing that is such a hallmark of the way that you have steered the boards throughout the years is this idea of decision-making, and decision-making has to be strategic. I mean, no major decision at The Community Foundation is made without either some kind of study, careful thinking, research…

Nina Waters

Research is the key.,

Cindy Edelman

Research and data. And I just think it’s a beautiful thing.

Nina Waters 

That’s so good to hear, Cindy. When you became chair of The Community Foundation, you really wanted us to exercise our moral capital and start putting a stake in the ground around issues in the community. So talk to me a little bit about what you learned about us needing to be, speaking out in the community, choosing to speak out in the community, and using our influence as a community foundation.

Cindy Edelman 

Okay, well, you brought this up. I learned the hard way, okay, that not everyone shared my social or political views. That was so hard to digest, but okay, it’s always tough being a Democrat in Duval County. And it was especially hard back then when it came to passing the Human Rights Ordinance. That was such a hot topic for years. So on our own, we decided to write a letter to the editor supporting the HRO. And, you know, if I recall correctly, we even lost a fund during that time, remember?

Nina Waters

We did.

Cindy Edelman

Maybe more than one, but one that I recall distinctly.

Nina Waters 

We drafted an advocacy policy that we actually share with others. And it’s served us so well over these past years because it really does say: when do we speak up and when do we not speak up? If you speak out too much, people stop listening to your voice. And you also need to know something about the topic, and at that point, we did know a lot about the HRO. So I don’t regret that we spoke up because we did have knowledge of it. But we really need to have a deep knowledge and be seen as an organization that’s working on that issue. I think just taking the time to educate the public or elected officials sometimes. Elected officials have so much coming at them at any given time. And I remember when we were trying to get the HRO passed as a community, we went to meet with each city council member, and we were able to bring information. One of the issues was they wanted to take the T off of LGBT in the HRO. And that was a big sticking point. So there was this controversy in the community about should we take off the T because it can get passed, or should we leave the T on. So we were able to bring some information from other communities, especially in Florida, that had had an HRO. And the fact that the problems that people were anticipating or speaking about just didn’t happen. So there wasn’t…there weren’t issues in the bathroom, but we had all this bathroom hysteria happening. So we then took, as you said, facts and information and were able to present that to city council members. And it gave them some of the talking points and information they needed to be able to talk to their constituents, but gave them the cover they need to vote for what was right for Northeast Florida. It’s really important.

[The Human Rights Ordinance was passed in 2020 and establishes protections in housing, employment, and public accommodations, such as restaurants, stores, and entertainment venues, for people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.]

Cindy Edelman

Yeah, and powerful.

Nina Waters

It really is. I think sometimes we as a country or community don’t always respect history or take the time to learn from it.

Cindy Edelman

 Right.

Nina Waters

I think that’s something that we’ve tried to do forever at The Community Foundation. We did a major strategic planning in 2004, if you remember, we kind of reinvented ourselves as a community foundation. We went back and looked at the history of philanthropy, period, in Northeast Florida.

Cindy Edelman 

Yeah. And that was also a time where we conducted interviews all over the community to hear diverse voices about what mattered the most to people. And it didn’t matter if you were an African American minister or a businessperson, everyone said public education is the number one priority.

Nina Waters

Speaking about education, you were a teacher yourself. Talk to us about that and why you have a passion for education, because a lot of your giving is in that area.

Cindy Edelman 

It’s pretty much focused on it. It didn’t start out that way. I grew up in Memphis. My parents were keen on all of us getting a really…being good students, getting a great education. I went to public schools. And my grandmother was a teacher.

Nina Waters

I didn’t know that.

Cindy Edelman

Yes. But I didn’t study education in college. And I’m so stupid, I wish I had.

Nina Waters

What did you study in college?

Cindy Edelman

Political science and history, So I went to work in Washington after college. And then I went back to JU [Jacksonville University] for a master’s in teaching, which really changed my life because I just, I knew that I wanted to teach because I just loved art history so much as a subject.

Nina Waters

So that was where your heart was.

Cindy Edelman

 It was. I think that joining The Community Foundation and being at the early stages of this exploration of education and learning about state, local, and national policies and directions, that was just life-changing for me. And really just soaking in as much as possible and being exposed to the needs in the community. And learning that so few people in the city were either connected or had any kind of relationship to the school district. It’s almost as though the school district was just out kind of on its own. And I don’t know, it just struck me, especially in some of the schools that we visited, that we needed to get involved.

Nina Waters 

And you could really see the difference in resources in schools and the challenges that especially Title I schools had at the time.

Cindy Edelman

Right.

Nina Waters

So we stepped in at the time because we, as you said, we were in the middle of a strategic plan. People said the number one issue was public education. The reason we stepped in is because the JCCI [Jacksonville Community Council, Inc.] study said someone needed to take the lead on that. So in 2004, we stepped out on public education, and we formed the Forum on Quality Education to help us to be able to say, let’s get a group of thought leaders together. And you were part of that. And as you said, most of the people in that room other than the people in the school district, which was the head of the union, the teacher of the year, the superintendent…other than those folks, the majority of the people had no knowledge of public education. And I would even dare say, most of them had never stepped into a public school in Duval County in their lives. So that was really an important time. We realized at that time, we didn’t know a lot about public education, but we decided to learn. And what I love about the Forum on Quality Education, the thought leaders we brought in from all over the country, is it really helped us to see that we needed an organization that had the capacity to do that work. And that’s why you and Gary Chartrand and I worked together to help capitalize the local education fund, which was the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, which was wonderful. But at that same time, we had learned about this organization called Teach for America. And we got exposed to them in such a real way, understanding that communities that were moving the needle on public education reform had the strong local education fund, but they also had some new and innovative ideas like Teach For America come into their community. For those that don’t know what Teach for America is, it’s really kind of like the Peace Corps for education. So I want to talk a little bit about Teach for America, how they came here from a living room conversation at your house on Sunnyside Drive. And what do you remember about what happened then and how it happened?

[In 2005, The Community Foundation launched the 10-year Quality Education for All Initiative, which focused on three strategies: community learning, direct investment, and public policy and advocacy. As part of the community learning strategy, the Forum on Quality Education brought together 27 community leaders for nearly two years of intensive learning about public education, both locally and nationally. The Quality Education for All Fund focused on great teachers and leaders for all students in Duval County and remains an endowed fund to this day.]

Cindy Edelman 

Well, like many great ideas, you were the catalyst. You called me up, and you said, “Can we have a meeting of donors at your home to listen to some national Teach For America people?” And I said, “Of course.” And what I remember was just how dynamic they were, how hopeful the message that they shared was, and that, you know, we were one of two or three other locations in the country that were being considered for a location. And we had, as usual, we had brought the right people together at the right time. And, you know, the main consideration was, would the school board approve them? And I remember that at the time, it just seemed to work so smoothly. It hasn’t always, but at the time, having them come in, it was a great…

Nina Waters 

We were lucky.

Cindy Edelman

Yeah, we were.

Nina Waters

…because we had had the forum and all of those folks were at the table with us for that 18 months. And most of the people sitting in your living room were people that were part of the forum, and we wanted to be the one chosen. So the donors in that room took up a challenge and said we’re going to raise the money to bring Teach For America here, and we’re going to offer it to them. And we’re going to see if they choose us. And indeed they did. And a lot of cases, it was some of their first investments in public education was bringing Teach For America here. It’s made a tremendous difference in this community over the more than a decade of service here. Teach For America told us later, the national told us later, that they had changed their stance about how they come into a community because of what happened in Duval County – because they had donors come together. And that became an expectation, if you wanted to be a site in the future, is to do it the Duval County way.

Cindy Edelman 

Well, kudos to you for, you know, being the fairy godmother of Teach for America.

Nina Waters 

And, well, to the donors who stepped up early on this concept that they’d never seen before. And the same thing really with the Jacksonville Public Education Fund. No one had ever seen a successful local education fund. So the donors here believed in the concept and took a risk.

[The Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF) was founded in 2009, inspired by The Community Foundation’s Quality Education for All Initiative, as an independent organization that works to increase buy-in among education leaders, partners, and the broader community to address disparities and improve student outcome and to close the opportunity gap for low-income students and students of color in Duval County.]

Cindy Edelman 

And it taught us such a great lesson, Nina, about the importance and the value of data and research for any kind of controversial topic on education. We had the data to support whatever it was that was being advocated, and it just makes a huge difference. Nina, you know, we were co-conspirators on a lot of education reform efforts and a lot of late-night conversations: the QEA [Quality Education for All] forum, the QEA initiative, the creation of the public ed. fund, and of course, the QEA fund. Why did you think we needed to step into that arena?

Nina Waters 

I think the main reason I thought we needed to step into the public education reform arena is because the community was asking for it – and I think we needed to listen to that. And I will say that I was a little worried and afraid about it because I didn’t have experience and The Community Foundation didn’t have experience in the public education space. I mean, my husband was a public school teacher here in Duval County, our child went to public schools, but I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what needed to happen. So it was a little bit scary at the time. But I did study a lot about what role can private philanthropy play in public education. And I studied a lot – and our staff did – about which communities, large urban communities, were moving the needle and what was the role of private philanthropy. And certainly, I think it’s so important for people to understand that private philanthropy will never be able to give enough money to change public education on its own – that real dollars are in the government dollars, the tax dollars that go into public education. So our role as I see it (the world according to Nina and many others that I’ve learned from) is really, our role is to help them invest in a different way, a more effective way – and to show them those ways. And to give the dollars they need to take risks. Because as we learned in the Forum on Quality Education, most of their money is tied up. The other thing that I think was critically important about QEA Initiative is that we made it a tenure initiative. The school system is very used to people coming in for a little bit and leaving, and I really think one of their objectives, to be honest with you, is let’s just wear them out and they’ll go away. But we weren’t going away. We stayed the course, and I think that was really important. So we said, we’re in this for the long term, we’re going to be your partner. And we weren’t doing anything to them, we were doing it with them. And even in the Quality Education for All Fund initiatives, that $38 million was decided by the school system, not by the donors. The donors, like you, wrote a blank check to the district and trusted the district to make good investments. So I think that was important. I think my favorite story in all of that work, and there were so many great stories, is that we were able to use private dollars to help the school system change how they address dropout prevention. We really saw that the dropout crisis was real, as it is in most large urban districts. The for-profit group that they were using, which I will not name, to do dropout prevention, to help pull kids back into schools, was having a success rate of less than 40%. We learned about an organization in New Jersey/New York area that was making a difference, Schools for the Future. We took district representatives there we went there, we learned from them, we brought it back here. We funded the first Schools for the Future sites with totally with private dollars…

Cindy Edelman 

At the Bridge.

Nina Waters

…at the Bridge. I think it was a $900,000 total investment. The district completely reallocated how they were doing dropout prevention as a result of that, and they were getting a much better result with a lot less money as a result. So it actually saved them money. But more importantly to me, it saved more kids.

[Schools for the Future/Bridge to Success was a program created for students who were two or more years older than their classmates. It partnered with the agency The Bridge for Northeast Florida, which provided support staff for afterschool programs and helped connect students to postsecondary schools or employers for jobs and internships.]

Cindy Edelman 

Yeah.

Nina Waters

And it was it was such a great example of how we can innovate. But at the end of the day, our goal is to get them to invest those public dollars in a more effective way. Because we will never with private philanthropy change public education alone.

Cindy Edelman 

And back to Schools for the Future. The superintendent at the time expanded it to 12 different locations after that first year.

Nina Waters

With school district funding.

Cindy Edelman

With school district funding, yes.

Nina Waters

Well, and the other thing that you did at JPEF that was so successful, and this was under your leadership, is you started to have joint board meetings, where people can actually meet each other and sit face to face across the table with people. I think it’s important. And once you get to know people, I think it can change things. But one thing that we’ve also learned is that elections matter. And through the work we’ve done with public education, and now it’s been almost a 20-year journey, is who is sitting in those seats matter. And that we need to pay attention to school board elections just like we need to pay attention to all elections.

Cindy Edelman

Amen.

Nina Waters

And when we’ve been able to make the biggest difference and get people to invest the most is when we’ve had school board members that have put children at the center of the work and said: The adults need to get out of the way. This is not designed for adults. This system needs to be designed for children. We have worked with some tremendously wonderful school board members, and we have worked with some that have really set us back very far. We are very excited that a fellowship exists in your name at The Community Foundation that is jointly administered by The Community Foundation and the Jacksonville Public Education Fund. So at one of your milestone birthdays, your wonderful husband, Dan Edelman, set up the Cindy Edelman Excellence in Teaching Fellowship. Talk a little bit about the fellowship, what it’s meant to you, and share a couple of stories over the past five years of that work.

Cindy Edelman 

I just think it’s the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received because it’s impacting teachers. Dan saw how much professional development meant to me. I saw, from all the schools that I’ve been in over the last 20 years, the need. I saw the need. I mean, teachers are just there on the front lines. They give so much of themselves. And in terms of their average pay, and in terms of some of the environments they teach, it just seemed like it was a wonderful way to give back and have it stand for something that was especially meaningful to me. So the way it’s set up is there is an application that’s gone through several iterations. That goes out in the late fall/early winter. And a single teacher or a team of teachers can apply for a professional development experience that can be used to directly impact what they teach in the classroom. A team of teachers this year who we just awarded, this is a group from Pinedale Elementary on the Westside. And they’re going to this fabulous phonics class at the Ohio State University. And also, one that I would suggest that The Community Foundation look into at some point _ a gifted and talented teacher at R.L. Brown Elementary [Richard Lewis Brown Gifted and Talented Academy], the teacher Mrs. Cameron Lloyd is growing a garden, a community garden, at the school. She wants to take it to the next level, so she is going to go to Tortola to learn more about gardening and really become a master gardener, if you will. We went out there last Friday, and I bet you didn’t know that there are seven different kinds of basil. I had never seen so many kinds of chives, and so forth. So what she wants to do is to have the children grow enough fruits and vegetables to sell at the Riverside Art Market. That’s the ultimate goal.

Nina Waters 

Terrific! Really an investment in our teachers, which is great. So it was an amazing gift. And the thing is that it’ll be giving in your name in perpetuity.

Cindy Edelman 

I hope that it might inspire others to place their stake in the ground in terms of doing things that really are so meaningful. You know, you can’t raise their salaries, but you can offer other ways of supporting them.

Nina Waters 

I think that’s a really important point, Cindy. You know, having been married to a teacher from Duval County that taught for 30 years, I think so often teachers are told what they need to do, and their voices aren’t heard. And we don’t have ways, creative ways, to really use their talents and understand what they bring to the table.

Cindy Edelman 

But I would say this, Nina, that we invest in education because we have the highest hope that it will be transformational. And in some cases, it has been.

Nina Waters 

It has been. I feel so strongly after doing all this work with public education that public education is really the civil rights issue of our time. It’s the great equalizer, and it makes such a tremendous difference. And we have to remember that, and we have to continue to invest in it, and we have to continue to give voice to the people that are doing that work because they’re the ones that are the experts – we are not. And during this whole time that we did QEA, we never tried to say we know better because we don’t. But so many people think because they went to public school, they’re an expert on public education – and that just isn’t the case. You know, it is a unique role, I think, of a community foundation, and certainly our community foundation, that we are the only philanthropic organization –really the only organization – that is connecting donors to the nonprofit sector. And I think that’s really important. And we’re also the only organization that is talking about why we need to be a more philanthropic community and why we need to endow this community. We don’t have the benefit of having large private foundations or very many corporate headquarters in Northeast Florida. So we have to build philanthropy. We are really one of the few organizations, or maybe the only in Northeast Florida, that is stimulating philanthropy. So we teach philanthropy, we work to get more foundations, we want more nonprofits to have endowments, we want to secure the future. So, Cindy, we’ve talked about a lot of great memories today, and we’ve had a lot of adventures together – and I hope we have a lot more. And we’ve also had an occasional misadventure together. Talk a little bit about, in spite of the challenges that we have faced, why do you continue to give back?

Cindy Edelman 

This is one of those questions that I did do some ruminating and thinking about, and I think it’s really about generational giving, or generational investing. It’s something that’s not easy or quick, and you can’t give up. Because, you know, you may not see the results for many years – I mean, maybe even more than one generation. And that is especially true of the investment in public education reform. Then the other thing is that I think the future is so bright here. You know, we’re very optimistic about about the giving world, let’s put it that way. How about you?

Nina Waters 

So for me, I think your observation about patient capital is really important. That is another gift of philanthropy – venture philanthropy is important, but also, we can be more patient. You know, government funding cycles happen in a year, and a lot of times, if you don’t spend the money, you have to give it back. But I think we can be a lot more patient, and we can give time for things to evolve and grow. And that’s been important. I am also very encouraged by the leadership that has come to this community, or has evolved in this community – so people that were here that are continuing to move into important positions and people that we have brought here. As a community, I think it’s so critical that Jacksonville continues to attract young talent. I think it’s important for people like me to get out of the way when it’s time to get out of the way and allow that next generation to move into these seats. And I can see that it’s time. One thing that I want to hear from you, because you have been such a leader, is what you hope is next for Jacksonville or Northeast Florida. What dreams do you have?

Cindy Edelman 

Well, I would love to see more compromise in the community, I would love to see less polarization. My hope is that the pendulum will swing more toward the middle as opposed to being on either end. The only way that happens is through dialogue and building of trust, and certainly having leadership that can carry it or lead the way. I mean, that’s your greatest gift. There’s so many, but I think that’s one of your many strengths is your ability to, you know, reach across divides and bring the people together. I’m hoping for that in the person who succeeds you, that they have the unique quality that you have in terms of being able to reach people at any and all level. It’s just this, you know, the heart that you’ve given to this work is really huge.

Nina Waters 

Yeah. And I have loved every minute of it. I will say that, you know, you were the right leader at the right time. We were coming into this leadership role, and you embraced it. And you championed it, and you gave us the ability and the permission to do it.

Cindy Edelman 

Well, this is making it so real that you’re actually leaving. And I will say that it has been one of the great privileges of my life to call you a friend.

Nina Waters 

And I feel the same way, Cindy.

Cindy Edelman 

I will miss you terribly. But on the other side of that coin, I know it’s time for you to be with your family. They’ve given up a lot, they’ve worked with your work ethic.

Nina Waters

They’ve been very patient.

Cindy Edelman

So your family needs you. And you know, you need some time for yourself to do whatever it is to figure out the next the next phase.

Nina Waters 

Yeah. I hope I enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed this job.

Cindy Edelman 

I hope you do, too. You have earned it over and over and over again, dear friend.

Nina Waters 

Well, thank you for being on the journey with me.

Cindy Edelman

It’s been an honor.

Nina Waters

Thank you.