Couple’s Gift: $2.75-Million Legacy for Jewish Group

The Jewish Federation of Orange County has received a $2.75-million gift, the life savings of a Laguna Hills couple who died last month.

The money will be added to an endowment fund, and the interest will be given each year to four Jewish charities that address issues of health care, higher education, Soviet Jews and the Holocaust, said Anne Firestone Fleming, spokeswoman for the federation’s Community Foundation.

Establishing an endowment “creates a legacy and memorial,” Fleming said. “It’s very satisfying for the person, especially in situations like this where there are no children or family.”

The gift was from Lea Fialkow and Vance Francis Hammerly of Leisure World in Laguna Hills.

The couple died of natural causes within 24 hours of each other last month, Fleming said. Lea Hammerly was 82 and Vance Hammerly was 90.

“It was an unusual situation, and they had no children or family of any kind, so giving to charity made sense,” she said. “Creating that legacy was important to” Lea Hammerly.

The Hammerlys and the foundation had worked out the agreement in past months, Fleming said.

The foundation, based in Costa Mesa, oversees $10 million in endowments, so the Hammerlys’ gift will increase its holdings by nearly a third, Fleming said.