How the Eluned and Edward Russell Charitable Foundation Came to Be

When Edward Russell and Eluned Breckenridge met on a cruise ship in 1974, romance struck immediately, and theirs was much more than a fleeting encounter.

Eluned, who went by “Lynne,” was born in the village of Pontlottyn, Wales, a small working class town where most of the men, including her father and brothers, worked deep underground in coal mines. Lynne left Wales for Canada shortly after her 18th birthday, arriving in Toronto with little to her name and nowhere to stay except for a Salvation Army hostel. She eventually arrived in the United States in 1948 and launched a career in the travel industry that included a stint in Hollywood with MGM, for whom she coordinated logistics for long-distance movie shoots. By 1969, she found herself in Sarasota, where she owned and operated multiple travel agencies.

Edward, meanwhile, was born in Revere, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. “Ted,” as he was known, attended Boston University and Northeastern University before entering the insurance industry at John Hancock. While there, he pioneered the idea of group life insurance, in which employers would deduct a small percentage of their employees’ pay and send it directly to an insurance company, which supplanted the old business model of insurance sales reps collecting on individual plans door to door. Ted spent his entire career in the insurance industry, eventually retiring as a senior vice president with Martin E. Segal Co. His expertise in the industry led him to be tapped by the Australian legislature to study its Social Security program and recommend upgrades, and he was known for mentoring up-and-coming insurance executives throughout his career.

While Ted and Lynne may have had very different backgrounds, they had deeper things in common. They had both recently lost their spouses (Ted his first wife, Margaret “Peggy” Dinneen Russell, and Lynne her first husband, Bill Breckenridge), they both loved music and dancing, and they were both passionate about sharing their good fortune with others. They married in December of the year they met and settled down in Sarasota, where their generosity blossomed.

Edward and Eluned Russell at the Bird Key Yacht Club

A devout Catholic, Ted enjoyed supporting religious causes with his giving, while Lynne loved to give to animal welfare nonprofits and organizations like the Salvation Army, which had helped her so much when she was a young immigrant in Canada. They were also generous to individuals in their sphere—buying a new car for one family member, flying in others for visits, helping another graduate from ballet school and go on to a prestigious dance career.

According to family members, the couple was decidedly fun to be around. Lynne was known for her extravagant St. David’s Day dinners, which took place every March 1 in honor of the patron saint of Wales, and the couple also hosted raucous cocktail parties on their boat docked at Bird Key. Having met on a cruise, they continued to travel for the rest of their lives, gallivanting around the globe and enjoying the good life.

Ted passed in 1997 and Lynne followed in 1999. Without children to bequeth their estate to, the Russells thoughtfully created a trust to carry on their philanthropic legacy. Family members Patricia Smith, Ted’s great-niece, and her father, Maurice Dinneen, Ted’s nephew, were asked to oversee the trust, with assistance from close friend and advisor Kathy Hendricks. Patricia, who goes by “Patty,” says she had become “thick as thieves” with Ted and Lynne after she moved to Sarasota to attend college, and as the couple aged, Patty acted as a caretaker for the couple. “They died being loved,” says Patty. Clockwise from top left: Eluned and Edward Russell on a cruise in the mid-’70s; Eluned (second from right) in Los Angeles as a young woman; the Russells at the Bird Key Yacht Club; Maurice Dinneen and Patricia Smith at a Habitat for Humanity project funded by the Russell foundation.

Maurice Dinneen and Patricia Smith at a Habitat for Humanity project funded by the Russell foundation

Since 2019, the Russells’ legacy has lived on as the Eluned and Edward Russell Charitable Foundation at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Patty says that she and her father do their best to support causes they think Ted and Lynne would want them to, like health and human services providers, nursing scholarships, children’s charities, arts organizations, animal shelters, and more. In total, $6 million has been donated from the Russells’ estate since they passed, with nearly $3.2 million of that coming since the partnership with the Community Foundation began. That includes more than $1 million in donations to St. Michael the Archangel Parish on Siesta Key, in honor of Ted’s strong Catholic faith.

Other prominent recipients of aid from the foundation include Tidewell Hospice (in particular its Blue Butterfly program, which supports children who are grieving), Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (where a grant provided defibrillators and staff training on how to use them), All Faiths Food Bank, and many others. A common thread of the gifts given over the years in the Russells’ memory is accessibility: At Historic Spanish Point, a Russell grant helped the organization purchase golf carts and all-terrain wheelchairs for visitors, while a donation to Big Cat Habitat allowed the animal sanctuary to invest in wheelchairs for its patrons.

“Ted and Lynne were empathetic people with big hearts who saw themselves in other people,” says Patty. “They never forgot where they came from.”

A donation from the Eluned and Edward Russell Charitable Foundation allowed Historic Spanish Point to purchase golf carts and all-terrain wheelchairs to increase accessibility.