{"id":37813,"date":"2026-07-15T11:39:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/?p=37813"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:46:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:46:32","slug":"in-memoriam-ida-schmertz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/2026\/07\/15\/in-memoriam-ida-schmertz\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam Ida Schmertz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is with deep sorrow that the Romanian-American Foundation shares the passing of Ida F. S. Schmertz, the founding Chair of our Board of Trustees and one of the true architects of our Foundation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"xdj266r x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">Ida was there at the very beginning. In 1994, she was appointed by President Clinton in the Board of the Romanian-American Enterprise Fund and then served as RAF&#8217;s first Board Chair. Ida devoted 24 years of pro bono service to Romania before retiring from the Board in October 2018. In this time, she helped shape not just an organization, but a picture of what philanthropy in Romania could be \u2014 transparent, accountable, built on partnership, and dedicated to creating opportunity for all Romanians.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">When her tenure as RAF Board member finished, Ida left us a message: \u201cI am pleased and proud to have played my part in developing the concept and the framework for RAF, in funding the organization and nurturing and supporting it during its early years. As I leave RAF, I feel confident that it will continue to invest in people, partners and programs, which will improve life in communities and help make Romanians proud to live in Romania.\u201d<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">We are grateful for everything Ida did for RAF and Romania. Her legacy endures in every community we serve.\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">We now leave Ida to speak in her own words. In the interview below, recorded with Andreea Ro\u0219ca in 2018, she reflects on her experience and on the vision behind the foundation.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aokfd1ZC8iI?si=4cdozyuRhAJTRWl6\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"xdj266r x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs x126k92a\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is with deep sorrow that the Romanian-American Foundation shares the passing of Ida F. S. Schmertz, the founding Chair of our Board of Trustees and one of the true [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37813"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37824,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37813\/revisions\/37824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}