Celebrating the Life & Impact of Ruth Shack

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:02]This video message goes out as a giant hug to our entire network at the Miami Foundation upon the the news of the passing of our matriarch of Ruth Shack.

[00:00:14]And she wasn't just the matriarch at the Miami Foundation as our first ever CEO who led us bravely uh for for several decades, but also as a matriarch for the entirety of Miami.

[00:00:26]is someone who served as a three-time county commissioner and who bravely used every minute of her time on earth as an advocate and a champion for the best of what humanity could be. She fought for civil rights, for human rights, for LGBTQ rights, for racial equity, for women's rights, for arts advocacy, for leadership development, uh for high integrity leadership in our community and in communities across the country.

[00:00:50]She she was brave with every breath of her body. She was brave. uh and even in in the week leading up to her death, she was still advocating for people to get out and vote and standing up for the things that she believed in. And she's someone who uh even in the decades after her retirement, people would travel up from Miami to visit with her and um and her family and just celebrate with her and reflect with her and continue to maintain friendship with her because of who she was as an icon, as a as a champion and and as a brilliant brilliant force of nature. And so um I know for me personally, she was an incredibly important formative force of leadership in my life. She was one of the first people I met when I touched down in Miami. I still remember our meeting viscerally. She was tough with me. She she really um from the moment I met her was just a fierce advocate for the best of Miami and held a high bar of excellence for anyone who would want to lead here and build here to make sure that we were clear on our values that we stood for the best not not for ourselves but but for the best of our community.

[00:01:53]And and um she continued to be a mentor and an adviser. She met with our entire team last year over Zoom and answered all of our questions and gave us so much wisdom.

[00:02:04]And I just am incredibly grateful to have a leader like that in my mind's eye as um as a muse for for what the future of leadership could look like in our community. And she she would reflect so frequently on how Miami evolves every decade. She was a big part of that for so many decades. Um, and I hope that we make her proud in our future. And I want to invite everybody who cares about Ruth and who knows Ruth and who has stories of Ruth to please share your photos and your memories and your stories of her.

[00:02:38]We'll be building a collective memorial to honor her and and remember her incredible legacy. And I want to invite you to contribute to that and to be a part of the storytelling and the and the memory of this incredible, iconic, fierce, brave, compassionate, valuesdriven, dedicated woman who did so much for our community in Miami, did so much for our country. Um, and I imagine if you're tuning in to this video, so much for you. So, uh, thank you. And uh I share in the loss with you and with our community and um hope that we can live out in her legacy.