Such a Good Feeling

Fred Rogers likes to help people. When he lived in San Diego he was an unofficial volunteer at the zoo there, helping disabled visitors get around. When he moved to Napa four years ago, he soon found his way to Queen of the Valley and became an official hospital volunteer, his red jacket studded with angel and teddy-bear pins and buttons reading “Be Kind to Each Other” and “Caught in the Act of Kindness.” His cheerfulness and gentle manner made him a favorite, and two years ago he received the award for “Excellence” in the hospital’s annual Values in Action honors.

Now Fred is helping Queen of the Valley and its patients in another way. This year he set up a $20,000 charitable gift annuity with the QVH Foundation. The annuity will provide income to Fred as long as he lives, and then what remains in the annuity will help the Foundation support the hospital wherever it’s needed most.

“The Queen is like a second home to me,” says Fred. “I enjoy the people I work with and I enjoy doing for others. It gives me such a good feeling. I’m just glad I can do this for the Foundation as well.”

Fred was born in the small town of Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region of New York in 1920. He served in the Navy, then moved to Philadelphia, but a high-school friend convinced him to come out to San Jose for a visit in 1951. “I think I knew when I came out to California that I was never going back,” Fred chuckles.

Fred worked in inventory control for a tractor company, then a salt company, while pursuing a successful hobby of fixing up neglected houses and selling them for a profit. In the late 1970s he became a bird breeder, raising canaries, parakeets, cockatiels, and African macaws. Another vacation trip, this time to San Diego, inspired another move, and Fred lived in Southern California until 1996, when he relocated to Napa to be near a beloved niece.

Now Fred’s annuity is adding a little extra luster to his very busy golden years. It’s providing him income at the rate of 9.1 percent, versus the 5.1 percent he was getting on the same money when he had it in a certificate of deposit. In addition, he’ll receive a hefty charitable tax deduction. “I had no idea I’d get the deduction,” he says. “That was a nice bonus. But the most important thing to me is that I’m helping the hospital.”