When I set about the business of finding individuals who had mastered the gift of giving back, I needed to look no further than my Uncle ‘Charlie’ McDowell. Charles S. McDowell, one of my mother’s four younger brothers, grew up in rural Elizabeth City, NC, near Norfolk, VA. He attended prep school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and then Princeton University where he graduated with honours, starred on the golf team, and was a cheerleader. Charlie was courtside for the 1965 Princeton basketball team that went to the Final Four in Portland, OR, led by former US Senator and NBA star, Bill Bradley.
After a stint in the US Navy, Charlie attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where he met his wife, my Aunt Mary Lou. After marriage, Charlie and Mary Lou moved to Wilmington, DE, and Charlie started his law career with the firm Potter Anderson. Charlie quickly made partner in the firm and was later the chair of the firm’s Business Group, practicing in the area of business and finance transactions.
From the Potter Anderson website:
Under his leadership, the firm served as bond counsel or underwriter’s counsel on transactions for the State of Delaware, all of the State’s bond issuing authorities, all three counties, all major municipalities in the State, as well as the Delaware River and Bay Authority.
Charlie held various leadership positions in the Delaware State Bar Association, including serving as president (2003-2004). He also served as chair of the DSBA Committee for Diversity in the Legal Profession which, among other things, established the Louis Redding Fellowship, a special summer clerkship for first year minority law students. This Committee also sponsors annual Minority Job Fairs for law students as well as a Supplemental Bar Review Program designed to assist law students in preparing for the Delaware Bar Exam.
Charlie currently serves on the Board of EastSide Charter School (formerly as Board Chair) and is the current CEO of EastSide Community Learning Center Foundation which supports EastSide Charter School. He also formerly served on the board of Charter School of New Castle (including as Board President). EastSide Charter and Charter School of New Castle are both urban charter schools serving pre-K to 8th grade students. He is the Board Chair of REACH Riverside Development Corporation, one of 28 nationwide affiliates of Purpose Built Communities, heading up a significant neighborhood revitalization initiative following the Purpose Built holistic strategy.
In the past he has also served on the Boards of Zip Code Wilmington, Inc.; the Delaware Bar Foundation and Delaware State Bar Insurance Services, Inc. (of which he was a founding director and longtime President). He is also a former director of WHYY, Inc. (Delaware Valley Public TV and Radio), Delaware Theater Company, Delaware Curative Workshop and New Castle County Economic Development Corporation. Charlie has received the Delaware Barristers Association’s 2014 “Excellence in Education Award” and the Delaware State Bar Association’s 2016 First State Distinguished Service Award for “exemplary leadership and service dedicated to the cause of good citizenship in civic and humanitarian service over a period of many years”; in 2018 EastSide Charter’s Early Learning Academy was renamed the “Charles S. McDowell Early Learning Academy” in his honor; in 2019 he received the First State Gridiron Community Service Award and in 2022 he received the Wilmington Award for Community Service.
REACH Riverside is a remarkable urban renewal project Charlie dreamed of, and, with the help of many, made possible from the ground up. He retired at age 60 and has worked tirelessly on this project for the past 18 years.
Mission: To accomplish a $600MM transformative holistic neighborhood revitalization of the Riverside neighborhood in NE Wilmington, DE., one of the state’s most impoverished areas (crime rates, unemployment, education levels, poverty etc. among the worst in the state.) Following the 4 pronged strategy developed by Purpose Built Communities:
After receiving the First State Distinquished Service Award, Charlie had this to say about giving back and the importance of getting involved in your local community.
My message today is to encourage you to get involved in some projects that will help your community. The challenges our communities faces are truly daunting. But don’t sit on the sidelines. When you look back on your life wouldn’t you really prefer to know that you made an effort to address these issues?
Don’t think you have time? Or think it will require too much personal sacrifice? I can assure you that the community projects I have been fortunate enough to get involved in have not been chores for me. Instead they have been the source of great personal satisfaction. It is what I go to bed thinking about and what I get up in the morning to do. For me receiving this award is like being thanked for doing what I love to do. It’s like that great line from a Brer Rabbit cartoon, when he has been hunted down by a tormenter who is trying to figure out what bad thing to do to him and Brer Rabbit says: “Please, please don’t throw me in the briar patch.”
I recently had an exchange with a Houston real estate developer whom I met at a conference dealing with urban neighborhood revitalization. I asked the gentleman why he was spending so much time on a particular project. He quickly noted that he had achieved commercial success in his business and now he wanted to achieve significance. I just love that concept – going from success to significance. Keep that in mind. You can go from success to significance by getting involved in your community. I assure you it will make you feel much better about your life experience.
