Russert praised for kindness, generosity
Fondly remembered for sensitivity to plight of less fortunate, help to broadcast colleagues
WASHINGTON — On a street corner near the studio where Tim Russert made himself famous, his hidden life story unfolded like a parable.
Approaching a homeless blind man begging just outside the restaurant where Russert had just eaten lunch, the NBC broadcast superstar didn’t drop a dime in the man’s tin cup. Instead, he stuffed two $100 bills in the blind man’s shirt pocket.
“When the guy asked for change, Tim just smiled and said: ‘You’re poor, so we have to do better,’ ” recalled the Rev. Joseph F. Moreno of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Buffalo, the friend of Russert’s who accompanied him that day in Washington several years ago. “He did this sort of stuff every day.”
Indeed, Russert did.
He gave of his money, of which he had so much, and he gave of his time, of which he had so little. A fortunate man sensitive to the plight of the less fortunate, he gave at a frantic pace, often under the cloak of anonymity, and he gave until his heart gave out.
And in the three weeks since Russert died unexpectedly at age 58, those close to him have begun to reflect on and discuss his generosity — the vast sums of money he and his wife, Maureen Orth, gave to charity, the scholarships he set up, the kindnesses he extended to everyone from that blind beggar to a CBS anchor with the $75 million contract.
It was a sharing born of empathy, a blessing and a burden.
“I honestly think that one of the reasons he’s gone is that he kept everyone’s feelings and thoughts in his heart,” said Lisa Havlovitz, his longtime personal assistant.
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The Rev. John G. Sturm, a mentor of Russert’s when he was a student at Canisius High School, remembers the moment of revelation that made Russert such a giver.
An English teacher asked Russert’s freshman class to write an essay about something new the students had encountered.
“He said: ‘That awakened me that I had to be alert to the world around me, not just the little world I’m living in,’ ” Sturm recalled the young Russert saying. “That awareness became part of his life — and it was the awareness of the needs of others.”
Of course, that awareness is a central tenet of the Catholic faith that Russert came to feel so deeply.
Russert shared so much “because he believed in his heart that it was the right thing to do,” Orth said. “Those were the values he grew up with. . . . He knew that all you had could be taken from you in a second, so what you did on this earth was measured.”
Tales of Russert’s profound generousity date from his youth in South Buffalo, and he kept on helping his hometown with the wealth he earned later as host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” and as a best-selling author.
Often he helped with a hidden hand.
For example, after Buffalo Police Officers Patricia A. Parete and Carl E. Andolina were shot while responding to a fight inside a West Side convenience store in December 2006, a heartsick Russert called his old friend Moreno.
“He just felt so terribly bad for those two officers, and he wanted to do something,” said Moreno, a former Buffalo police chaplain who is close to Parete.
Before long, food started arriving at Erie County Medical Center — pizzas and salads and sandwiches for the officers’ families, for the Buffalo police officers standing vigil, for the hospital staff.
The food kept coming all the way into January, after Andolina had recovered and when Parete left for a rehabilitation facility.
While many people donated food, Russert secretly bought $1,000 worth.
“He wanted to make sure the family and everybody was taken care of,” Moreno said. “Even after that, he would call me every six or eight weeks, wanting to know how Patty was.”
Most of Russert’s gifts were not quite so clandestine. But aside from his annual $1,500 gift to the Diocese of Buffalo for a teaching award named in honor of Sturm and another mentor, Sister Lucille Socciarelli, Russert tended to keep the details of his giving private.
He established a scholarship at Canisius High that has helped 12 students over the last decade, but the size of the endowment remains a secret.
Similarly, John Carroll University in Cleveland won’t say how much Russert gave to establish the two scholarships he set up at his alma mater last year — one for students from low-income families, one for students from Western New York.
In addition, Russert “gave or directed substantial sums, amounting in the millions,” to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, the group said. He and his wife established a program to teach writing to incarcerated youths in Washington,
D. C., and the family gave big money to build a weight room and help with other projects at St. Albans School in Washington, which his son, Luke, attended before going to Boston College.
“He was a treasure to all of us,” said Vance Wilson, headmaster at St. Albans.
And to countless others. Havlovitz, Russert’s assistant, noted that Russert kept two sets of stamps at her desk — one for official business and one, which he paid for, for personal mail.
Every week, Russert would ask her to put his own stamps on two or three envelopes.
“All of those envelopes were going to one charity or another,” Havlovitz said.
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The gift of time proved to be more of a challenge, but for years, Russert gave of it, pushing people beyond where they saw themselves going and endlessly paying back everyone who helped him.
“He was one of the nicest, most generous colleagues I ever had the pleasure of working with,” said Katie Couric, the CBS anchor.
She credits Russert for calling her out of the blue when she was a local reporter at WRC in Washington and pushing her to take her first job at NBC.
Betsy Fischer, executive producer of “Meet the Press,” came to NBC as an intern 17 years ago, seeing it as a temporary stop on the way to law school.
“But then I got bit by the Tim Russert bug,” Fischer said.
All through Fischer’s career, Russert challenged her, first to become a producer and then, at the age of 32, to take on the top job she holds to this day.
“He believed in me before I ever had the confidence to believe in myself,” Fischer said.
Meanwhile, Russert believed in gratitude and showed it time and again. When Sturm wrote a book, Russert threw a book party for him in Washington.
When Socciarelli, his seventh- grade teacher, asked him to appear at the celebration of her 50th anniversary as a nun and at a fundraiser for Catholic education in Fall River, Mass., where she lives now, he made the time.
He also nurtured ties to his hometown. A solicitation that mentioned an old friend, Joanne Geary Buczkowski, led to a $1,000 gift, creation of the Tim Russert Children’s Garden in South Buffalo and a visit from Russert for the dedication.
“He called me, and we talked a lot,” especially about Buczkowski’s brother Paul, a friend of Russert’s and Vietnam War veteran who died of exposure to Agent Orange. So when Paul Geary was honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington a while later, Russert volunteered to be the main speaker.
Similarly, when Lisa M. Slisz, a secretary for the Buffalo School District, e-mailed Russert last year to ask that he help City Honors School celebrate being named by Newsweek magazine as the eighth-best high school in the nation, Russert called her right back — and agreed to come to Buffalo for the celebration.
Russert also put himself out for bid, allowing charities to auction off visits to “Meet the Press” — which, for instance, raised $250,000 just to fight juvenile diabetes, Orth said.
Nearly every week, auction winners appeared at the studio, and Russert always visited with them after the show. And when Canisius High called and asked if it could have two visits instead of one this year, he immediately said yes, Havlovitz said.
“That’s the way it always was,” she said. “Tim gave a little, and they always wanted more.”
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In his last weeks, Russert made the time not only to move his father to an assisted-living facility in Orchard Park, but also to vacation with his family in Italy, deliver a high school commencement speech in Annapolis, Md., pay a hospital visit to a young acquaintance who had fallen ill with cancer, and continue in his 17th year as host of “Meet the Press.”
“In the end, it turned out to be too much,” Orth said. “Everyone expected so much.”
But for some, now that Russert is gone, the expectations are even higher.
Socciarelli, Russert’s seventh- grade teacher, said she recently got a call from a Dominican priest whom she didn’t know and who didn’t leave his name.
“He was ready to try to get Tim canonized,” Socciarelli said. “I was just so shocked, and I know Tim would be laughing about it.
“But you know, maybe it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.”
