On April 10, 1947, a local San Diego newspaper reported, “With the Passover holidays celebrating the release of Jews from bondage drawing to a close, the United Jewish Fund will intensify its campaign to raise $350,000 to provide food, shelter, medical aid and clothing for the Jews of Europe.” Among the volunteers was Anne Ratner, a remarkable San Diegan with a passion for making a difference.

“As a young girl, I often came home from school to find Mother holding meetings in our living room,” said daughter Pauline Ratner Foster. “I remember during the war she was working to resettle the refugees, and I would go with her, to help.” These were among the first of many volunteer ventures the two would share and shape.  Pauline has handed down this spirit of philanthropy to her own daughters, Marcia Hazan, Lisa Foster, and Karen Silberman—who each put in countless hours for San Diego nonprofits such as Jewish Family Service, MADCAPs (a mother-and-daughter philanthropy organization), and the San Diego Center for Children. “Giving is learned,” said Pauline. “It comes through involvement, and in order to teach the next generation, you have to set an example yourself.”

Anne and her late husband, Abraham, certainly did so, and because Abe leaned toward helping children, UCSD received a pivotal gift in his memory from Anne to establish the Abraham Ratner Children’s Eye Center at the Shiley Eye Center in 1993. This was followed by the Anne Frances Ratner Endowed Chair in Pediatric Ophthalmology, the Ratner Children’s Eye Mobile, and most recently, a major gift to the center to support its expansion. All this plus support of the Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center, the Rebecca and John Moores Cancer Center, and many other gifts across campus since 1967.

Why UCSD? Pauline’s view is that, “UCSD has made this community mature; without the university we never would have had the intellectual growth we’ve experienced over the last forty years. The city had to grow to meet the needs of the university, and it brought us into the twentieth century.  We were just a little Navy town when I was growing up.” A leader in many high-profile nonprofit organizations across San Diego, and a donor to UCSD since the late 1980s, in 1994 Pauline was asked to serve on the advisory committee to endow The Katzin Chair of Jewish Civilization. Since then, Pauline has held leadership roles on other campus committees and boards, including the UC San Diego Foundation, a position her late husband, Stanley, had also held.

“My mother wanted to memorialize my father,” said Pauline, who recently did the same for her own husband with a $5 million gift to the Rady School to establish the Stanley and Pauline Foster Endowed Chair. “My husband was an entrepreneur. He was interested in the business school because he recognized the need to train dynamic, creative, ethical leaders to guarantee San Diego’s future growth. I feel that business put me in the position I’m in, and I’d like to support its viability in San Diego. We’ve never had a business climate that was adequate to support the cultural and charitable needs of the community, until now.” Spoken like a true philanthropist.