Photographs by William Taufic.
We are so fortunate to be in a place that has such a richness of arts,” says Pamela Lewanda, a Stamford resident who sits on the board at the Avon Theatre, the Bruce Museum and the Stamford Center for the Arts. Of the three, the Avon was her first love; she has been involved since the 1930s picture house in downtown Stamford reopened as a not-for-profit art house cinema in 2004. 
Louisa Greene, who represents the theater’s staff, explains: “The Avon has become a vital economic engine within the local community, thanks in great measure to Pamela’s leadership. Using her professional background in publishing and then in marketing at IBM, Pamela has helped put the Avon Theatre on the cultural map in the metro New York area. She has contributed countless hours over the past six years to develop the Avon’s brand awareness, coproduce the theater’s Red Carpet gala, coproduce and cowrite a short documentary about the Avon, recruit outstanding new board members, chair the nominating committee and develop the corporate outreach program.”
Describing the early gala’s Pamela says: “We had live performances with singers and dancers—one year we had a group of Rockettes.” The entertainment led up to a live feed of the Oscar Awards broadcast. “Film is such a passion for me,” she says. Pamela’s passion for the big screen on Bedford Street segues nicely into her other loves. “I’ve worked with the Bruce Museum in the past. I’m new on the board this year,” she says. Pamela cochaired the Bruce’s Dimensions in Dining event last fall, a series of intimate dinners at individuals’ homes, featuring celebrity guests such as Ron Howard and architect Robert Stern. “The Bruce, Avon and Stamford Center—they all do outreach to students, which is a really important element.”
Pamela says her parents emphasized community service. “Both of them have been volunteers for as long as I can remember, whether it was Girl Scouts or the Coast Guard Auxiliary. They are in their mid-80s and it continues: My dad is a court arbiter for young offenders—that’s a full-time volunteer job—and my mom is having a lunch for a philanthropic society today.”
When asked if she’s always loved the arts, Pamela replies, “What I love is the creative process and all of its different expressions.” She wrote for her school newspapers in North Carolina as a teen and at Wake Forest College, and then worked as a reporter and city editor at various papers in Florida before heading into a twenty-three-year career at IBM. Now retired, Pamela is an avid amateur photographer.
“This award made me think about what is compelling me across the different mediums. I really honestly believe that art is our window on the world—across cultures and across time—and each one is complementary to the others. It’s our history and our future. There is a feeling that ‘s involved with art in any form. It might make you feel happy. It might make you feel sad. But you feel something, and it’s the art that is eliciting that. That for me is what brings it all together.”