Donor Spotlight: The Selwyn S. & Renee Kraushar Schwartz, & Vivian E. & Robert W. Rice Sunday Concert Series
Every Sunday, the sounds of live music fill The Selfhelp Home. It’s a tradition that has become one of the most cherished parts of life in our community.
The Selwyn S. & Renee Kraushar Schwartz & Vivian E. & Robert W. Rice Sunday Concert Series brings residents, families, and performers together week after week, offering not just entertainment but connection, joy, and a sense of occasion.
This beloved program endures thanks to the generosity of Esther Joy Schwartz and a bequest from the estate of Vivian Rice, a former resident.
Though they share a common mission, each came to support the concert series along different paths.
For Esther, music is a lifelong endeavor.
“My family was raised in music,” Esther explains. “We’re all violinists. I played violin, piano. I am a very serious musician. My mom was a soprano. My whole family is musical. All the brothers play, all the nephews play. I played in the symphony, and I played at the University of Chicago all my career.”
Music played such a central role in Esther’s relationship with her mother. “Mom and I would go to The Lyric together, we would dance together, we would go to the symphony together.”
So it’s no surprise that during her two stays at The Selfhelp Home, Esther’s mother was drawn to the Sunday concerts. Besides all the time spent together at meals or throughout the week, it was rare the two missed a Sunday show together.
“That was our routine.”
It’s why Esther calls the weekend concerts “critical.”
“IT’S EVERYTHING THAT I LOVE IN MUSIC”
“[Selfhelp] has The Merit School that comes with very young violinists and guitarists, and it’s everything that I love in music. Because it’s just children growing and learning,” she tells us. “So, we get all spectrums of music talent. We get the little ones and then we get people kind of at the end of their careers.”
Esther’s passion for the arts extends past our Sunday concerts, her philanthropic giving supports the opera, ballet and Yiddish culture, which she credits to her father, Selwyn, a cherished Yiddish poet.
In addition to helping ensure the concert series endures, Esther can often be found at The Selfhelp Home on Sundays, escorting residents down from the seventh and eighth floors so everyone can enjoy the performance.
On the other side of the marquee, Vivian Rice’s connection to the concert series speaks to the transformative power of The Selfhelp Home.
Vivian Rice was a resident for roughly six and a half years. At her passing, Vivian left a bequest to The Selfhelp Home with the request that it be used to support a program or a capital campaign.
During a meeting with the then-executive director of Selfhelp, it was suggested to Vivian’s daughter, Andrea Yablon, and her brother, Arthur Elstein, that the funds support the concert series and that it be named in honor of Andrea’s parents. For Andrea, the choice was clear.
Andrea explained that the concert series was “a must” for her mother, despite “not [being] a serious music fan before moving into Selfhelp.”
For Vivian, her support was less about the music itself and more about what the concert series represented: her deep affection for Selfhelp. Andrea shares that her mother was very happy here because it is such a warm place.
“She was not a people person before she moved in, but she really enjoyed the people at Selfhelp. She loved the programming,” Andrea adds, “[Selfhelp] really is oriented toward families and friends.”
She continues, “My mother was amazing, but she didn’t know she was amazing. A lot of it was brought out [at Selfhelp].”
Andrea points to the power of Selfhelp, saying it brought out leadership qualities in her mother “that she never knew she had.” She recalls her mother starting a Nutritional Advisory Council with fellow residents, where they recommended healthy ingredients to be used in the Selfhelp kitchen to prepare meals for residents..
“She was a leader, although she didn’t know it. And that’s really a commentary on Selfhelp.”
We say it’s a commentary on our community. A community that continues to support and uplift each of its members with moments of connection.
Together, the Schwartz and Rice families have ensured that music remains woven into the fabric of daily life at The Selfhelp Home. What began as two separate acts of love has created a lasting gift that brings our residents together every Sunday. Their generosity is a reminder that the most meaningful philanthropy often comes from the most personal places.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who supports programming at The Selfhelp Home, for helping ensure that opportunities for joy, growth, and community remain at the heart of daily life here.