The sound of kindness
June 14, 2025
| By La Crosse Community Foundation |
The Bob and Jean Marck Family Fund
David Marck jokes that while some people summer in the Hamptons or Tuscany, he summers in La Crosse. A professional jazz pianist based in New York City, Marck returns to his hometown each year for a season that blends gigs, gratitude, and giving back. It’s not just the Driftless beauty or the energy of old friends and familiar faces that draws him back — it’s also the deeply personal responsibility he shares with his sister Sara as co-advisors of the Bob and Jean Marck Family Fund at La Crosse Area Community Foundation. Though not involved with the fund, their sister, Bobbi, is also part of the family legacy their parents left behind.
The fund, established through a generous bequest from David and Sara’s parents, Bob and Jean, directs more than $100,000 annually to causes that reflect their family’s values. David and Sara each oversee half the annual grants, supporting causes that reflect their parents’ values and their own — from animal welfare and voter engagement to hunger relief, public education, and the arts.
But perhaps nowhere is the fund’s impact more visible than in the joyful, swinging energy of live music.
Free music, open doors
Each September, David organizes and headlines a free community concert at Viterbo University’s Fine Arts Center. The event, initiated through the Marck Family Fund and funded by the Ambrosious Fund, features jazz interpretations of American songbook classics — often honoring a single composer each year. This year’s program, “Always: A Celebration of Irving Berlin,” will take place on Wednesday, September 10. Admission is free, and seats are first-come, first-served.
“It’s become more than I ever imagined,” David said. “Playing music for my hometown, alongside dear friends like Greg Balfany, Karyn Quinn, and Rich MacDonald, in a beautiful space, for people who genuinely love the music — it’s a gift. And it’s not lost on me how lucky I am to do this.”
A new initiative: Music that heals
Recently, the Marcks launched a new branch of their giving: grants to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to bring live music directly to residents. It’s a cause close to David’s heart. While visiting La Crosse in recent years, he has performed, gratis, at several area senior living facilities, including memory care units. One performance in particular stands out. As the music began, a previously unresponsive woman slowly opened her eyes, began moving to the rhythm, and started to speak as David played songs from the era of her youth.
“It was like her spirit returned for a while,” he said. “The music brought her back. We’re hoping to create more of those moments for the residents, their families, the staff, and even the musicians who share in it. It’s profound.”
David and Sara offer these grants with flexibility, allowing recreation directors to book the music they feel best suits their residents. “It doesn’t have to be jazz,” David said. “It just has to be live.”
Carrying on a community commitment
The roots of the Marck family’s philanthropy stretch back nearly a century. David’s grandfather, also named Dave, ran a traveling movie service in rural communities throughout the Coulee Region during the 1930s. With newsreels, cartoons, and serial westerns, he brought free entertainment — and a sense of community — to small towns lacking other options.
That spirit of giving carried through to the brick-and-mortar electronics store the Marcks later opened on Main Street and now lives on in the family’s donor-advised fund. David and Sara continue that legacy by supporting dozens of causes each year, large and small.
“It’s joyful,” David said of the experience. “To be able to do this — give money in a way that makes people’s lives better — it’s incredibly meaningful. My mom and dad would be proud.”
What comes next
Looking ahead, David hopes the fund will continue doing what it was always meant to do: build community through music, kindness, and any moment that lifts a person’s spirit. “Long-term, we just want the fund to keep doing good. That’s what our parents wanted. That’s what we want too.”
