It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Mary Lloyd Estrin, Chair Emeritus of the Ploughshares Fund Board of Directors. She passed away peacefully in April of 2020, following a long illness.
"Mary leaves behind a remarkable legacy," said Joe Cirincione, President of Ploughshares Fund. "I loved working with her. We were fortunate to have a person of her abilities running, guiding and motivating the organization and her fellow board members. Mary did it all with an elegance and charm that masked her steely will and accountant's eye. We appreciate her, we love her, and we will always be grateful to all she has done for Ploughshares Fund."
Mary began serving on the Board of Directors in 1999, and was its Chair from 2013 to 2018, guiding us through victories such as the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
"Mary became an incredible mentor to me not just for Ploughshares Fund, but as a board member, a grant maker and a citizen,” said Terry Gamble Boyer, current Chair of the Ploughshares Fund Board of Directors. “Mary’s ideas, energy and contributions will forever be a part of the Ploughshares Fund legacy."
The Estrin Family and friends recently established the Estrin Award Fund to provide seed grants to emergent, risk-taking, movement-building efforts that have the potential to transform the work of Ploughshares Fund. The Estrin Award Fund will support grassroots activists and new voices that highlight the intersectionality of the nuclear issue with other issues such as human rights, social justice, the environment, and women’s rights.
Mary was program officer of the Human Rights and Economic Justice program at the General Service Foundation, where she focused on support for those most affected by increasing inequity in the US and our fractured economic system, and served as vice-chair of the John M. Lloyd Foundation, which supports efforts to end mass incarceration in Los Angeles County.
Mary also served on the steering committee of the Labor and Community Working Group of the Neighborhood Funders Network, and on the Advisory Committee of the LIFT Fund. She has also served as a trustee of Vassar College, as Board Chair of the Wildwood School, and on local community boards.
A photographer for 15 years, she was the author of To the Manor Born, a social documentary book from the other side. Ploughshares Fund extends our deepest condolences to Mary’s family, including her husband, Robert Estrin; and her beloved children, Zoe Foxley, and Eliot and Jesse Estrin.
You may donate to the Estrin Award Fund by "designating" a gift today.
