Valley Bar Assocation Memorial and Commemorative Fund

This Fund was established by the Board of the Valley Bar Association as a means to honor and memorialize Bar Association members or other members of the legal profession and will support grants, awards and/or scholarships as recommended to the Board by an advisory committee.

The Valley Bar Association, a voluntary association of local, practicing attorneys has been in existence for over 75 years, with many members spanning two, and in come cases, three generations.

The Androski Family, for example, has been represented by father John; children: Jack, Ed and Mary; with granddaughter Caroline continuing a three-generation tradition.

Two-generation members presently practicing together include John and Tom Welch, Dominick and Greg Thomas, Tom and Kevin Condon, and the Skuret Family: Daniel D. and sons Daniel III and Patrick.

Further, a number of current Bar Association members have had the privilege of working with their late fathers, including: John Bennett and his father William, Jamie Cohen and his father David, Laura Donahue and her father Edward, and Jeffrey Tuccio and his father Bill.

These families and members (as well as John Sponheimer, whose grandfather was John J. O'Connell) have continued a tradition of service to their respective clients, and, through their ties together as attorneys, have supported many various charitable endeavors in the Valley throughout the years.

However, it was the untimely 2005 death of Ansonia lawyer and Bar Association member Bill Tuccio, which served as the impetus for the creation of the Valley Bar Association Memorial and Commemorative Fund through the Valley Community Foundation. It has been supplemented by the generous gift of a challenge grant by Selma Yudkin in memory of her husband, Harold B. Yudkin, who passed away in 2004, after being an attorney and Bar Association member since 1937. Additional monies have been given to commemorate deceased family members, and to honor significant events in the lives of other Association members.