“A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”  Basil Caesarea. 

Why am I quoting a Saint?  (I was going to use Galatians  6: 7-9 but that particular quote seemed more ominous than encouraging so I went with Basil.)  But back to the question — why a quote about good deeds?  Because they really do come back and reward you and I have a living, breathing example.  Tuesday afternoon I attended George’s announcement of his latest undertaking that only came to be because of all the good George has done for our city and the state.  But first a little backstory. 

There was a brilliant, philanthropic resident of Santa Fe named David Weininger.  Weininger was a scientist, entrepreneur, inventor.    He was a science fiction fan, and in fact he bought the Santa Fe home formerly owned by Roger Zelazny.  He was a musician and a test pilot, a star gazer.   Mr. Weininger had watched George’s efforts on behalf of Santa Fe — Meow Wolf,  Cocteau Theater, screenwriting prizes, etc., and when he learned he was dying he gifted to George the office building that had housed Weininger’s company, Daylight Chemical Information Systems.  All Weininger asked was that George “do something good with it.”

And George has done just that.  On Tuesday with Santa Fe’s charismatic mayor Javier Gonzales and people from the various film festivals, managers of studios, rag tag writers hanging around 😉 , etc. gathered George announced the formation of The Stagecoach Foundation.  The building will be used to house film and television productions at a very nominal fee to encourage those productions to come to Santa Fe in particular and New Mexico in general.  The first production to utilize the offices will be the Coen Brothers for a new film they will be filming in the area.

In addition to providing office space for production staffs the foundation will provide help to the young people of Santa Fe who might want to pursue a career in film.  It’s going to be a resource that will bring investment to the area and provide young people with an opportunity to work here rather than scattering to Los Angeles or New York.

Here is the logo for the new foundation created by the very talented Raya Golden.