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Arts Patron

David K. and Georgia E. Welles, Toledo

Nominated By: Toledo Museum of Art

View video tribute (2:51 minutes, 10M)

David K. and Georgia E. Welles have been actively involved in the Toledo arts community for more than 40 years. They have contributed countless hours as volunteers and significant financial resources to non-profit organizations throughout Ohio, across the country and around the world. The roster of organizations in northwest Ohio that have benefited from their devotion to service includes many social service and arts organizations such as the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, Bowling Green State University and the Toledo Museum of Art. They have served on several boards throughout Ohio, including Georgia’s longtime service on the Ohio Arts Council Board. The Welles have supported the Toledo Museum of Art for more than 30 years, not only financially, but also through countless hours as volunteer leaders on the Museum’s Board of Directors and various Board Committees. Most resounding, however, is the leadership that Georgia and David have shown during the Museum’s two recent capital and endowment campaigns. The most recent campaign raised more than $60 million, and was the largest fundraising campaign in Toledo’s history. In addition, The Georgia and David K. Welles Sculpture Garden was completed in 2001 and has helped reclaim the Museum’s front entrance. The garden includes more than 20 major sculptures, eight of which were donated by Georgia and David. Not since the Museum’s founders, Edward Drummond Libbey and Florence Scott Libbey, at the beginning of the 20th century, have there been two people more dedicated to the Toledo Museum of Art and to the arts in their community than Georgia and David Welles. They are two of Toledo and Ohio’s most exemplary leaders and advocates of the arts.