PACG Member J Gardner Passes
A Message from the Board
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of long-time PACG member Dr. J Gardner, MD.
Dr J H Gardner was a great friend and supporter of PACG. As a physician he was especially interested in health care reform, but his vast and varied life experiences made him supportive of many different progressive causes. He believed in our work at PACG, and was a generous donor.
As he aged it became more difficult for him to attend our meetings, many of which are in the evenings. The pandemic was especially isolating for him because he couldn’t go out with his friends or get to the Y to work out. But, ironically, it did lead to him becoming a regular attendee at the PACG Book Club!
Early in the pandemic PACG Board member Alta Price reached out to some of our older and less tech-savvy members to get them connected via Zoom. She says that, “No one had as little trouble getting on Zoom as Dr. Gardner, who was 91 at the time!”
“J was a loyal member of Book Club during the pandemic. We will miss his insight and the wisdom gained from a long life filled with incredible experiences. J suggested many great books for us to read and discuss. I know our Book Club enriched his life as well. When he joined us in reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi it was the first fantasy novel J had ever read - at age 91! He shared that it was strange, but he enjoyed it. All of our regular Book Club members will really miss him,” reports Alta.
Once on Zoom, J also served on our Finance Committee, which benefited greatly from his suggestions and guidance.
PACG Board member, Treasurer and Fundraising Chair Ann McCluskey had the following remembrance to share: "I met Dr. J H Gardner long ago over lunch. He was interested in a wide range of issues but we mostly we talked about our love of books and shared authors and book titles.
"Over the past year, Dr. Gardner was an active member of the PACG Fundraising Committee. He was responsible for introducing the concept of QCD to us, the way of giving to PACG via a Qualified Charitable Distribution. He explained that a QCD allows traditional IRA owners over 70 ½ years old to deduct from their required minimum distribution if they donate money directly from their traditional IRA to a qualified charity, explaining that the donor can give up to $100,000 to a qualified charity of their choice, lower their adjusted gross income (AGI) and effectively reduce their income taxes. Dr. Gardner was looking for a way to do more with his charitable donations and for all of us to be ongoing stewards of Progressive Action for the Common Good. We quickly adopted the QCD concept into our 2021 Fundraising Campaign. And we will use it in future campaigns.
"Dr. Gardner was interested in making sure that PACG would continue its work on progressive issues for generations to come."
PACG Book Club members Laura and Sharon shared this: "We were always glad to see Dr. Garner's smiling face on the Zoom Book Club meetings. His comments were always insightful. We will miss him."
This wonderful obituary in the Quad City Times, details some of his incredible life story. Dr. Gardner will be missed by all of us at PACG.
Donations can be made in J's honor to Planned Parenthood, the YMCA of Davenport and the Kay Gardner Memorial Foundation Fund at the Quad Cities Community Foundation.
We will let our community know when information becomes available about a memorial service.
Alta Price
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of long-time PACG member Dr. J Gardner, MD.
Dr J H Gardner was a great friend and supporter of PACG. As a physician he was especially interested in health care reform, but his vast and varied life experiences made him supportive of many different progressive causes. He believed in our work at PACG, and was a generous donor.
As he aged it became more difficult for him to attend our meetings, many of which are in the evenings. The pandemic was especially isolating for him because he couldn’t go out with his friends or get to the Y to work out. But, ironically, it did lead to him becoming a regular attendee at the PACG Book Club!
Early in the pandemic PACG Board member Alta Price reached out to some of our older and less tech-savvy members to get them connected via Zoom. She says that, “No one had as little trouble getting on Zoom as Dr. Gardner, who was 91 at the time!”
“J was a loyal member of Book Club during the pandemic. We will miss his insight and the wisdom gained from a long life filled with incredible experiences. J suggested many great books for us to read and discuss. I know our Book Club enriched his life as well. When he joined us in reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi it was the first fantasy novel J had ever read - at age 91! He shared that it was strange, but he enjoyed it. All of our regular Book Club members will really miss him,” reports Alta.
Once on Zoom, J also served on our Finance Committee, which benefited greatly from his suggestions and guidance.
PACG Board member, Treasurer and Fundraising Chair Ann McCluskey had the following remembrance to share: "I met Dr. J H Gardner long ago over lunch. He was interested in a wide range of issues but we mostly we talked about our love of books and shared authors and book titles.
"Over the past year, Dr. Gardner was an active member of the PACG Fundraising Committee. He was responsible for introducing the concept of QCD to us, the way of giving to PACG via a Qualified Charitable Distribution. He explained that a QCD allows traditional IRA owners over 70 ½ years old to deduct from their required minimum distribution if they donate money directly from their traditional IRA to a qualified charity, explaining that the donor can give up to $100,000 to a qualified charity of their choice, lower their adjusted gross income (AGI) and effectively reduce their income taxes. Dr. Gardner was looking for a way to do more with his charitable donations and for all of us to be ongoing stewards of Progressive Action for the Common Good. We quickly adopted the QCD concept into our 2021 Fundraising Campaign. And we will use it in future campaigns.
"Dr. Gardner was interested in making sure that PACG would continue its work on progressive issues for generations to come."
PACG Book Club members Laura and Sharon shared this: "We were always glad to see Dr. Garner's smiling face on the Zoom Book Club meetings. His comments were always insightful. We will miss him."
This wonderful obituary in the Quad City Times, details some of his incredible life story. Dr. Gardner will be missed by all of us at PACG.
Donations can be made in J's honor to Planned Parenthood, the YMCA of Davenport and the Kay Gardner Memorial Foundation Fund at the Quad Cities Community Foundation.
We will let our community know when information becomes available about a memorial service.
Alta Price
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