Founded by an anonymous donor as a donor advised fund in memory of Franklin and Anna Tolman.

Franklin Tolman, an electrical engineer and graduate of The University of Vermont, met his wife Anna, a dental hygienist, in Flushing, New York in 1940. The following year they married. After living and working in various parts of the Midwest, the couple settled down in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania to be closer to their family in the early 1950’s. Over the next several decades, Franklin earned his professional engineer’s license while working for Line Material, which later became McGraw Edison. Anna was very active in the community, volunteering with the Bushkill Garden Club, the United Methodist Women of East Stroudsburg Methodist Church, and the Pocono Medical Center’s Women’s Auxiliary. While they never had any children of their own, the Tolmans were known to have welcomed a fox terrier and a long series of cats into their home, and remained a positive influence in the lives of their nieces and nephews and their children and grandchildren. An anonymous donor established The Ford/Tolman Fund to honor the memory of Mr. and Mrs. Tolman by awarding charitable donations in their names.