Generosity of Spirit A family’s legacy of giving starts with love

In his life, Tony Viglione carried a strong love of life, family and community. In 1956, he immigrated to the United States from Italy with his parents and two siblings, all their Earthly belongings carried in three suitcases. Moving to the borough of Ridgway in northwestern Pennsylvania, Tony juggled jobs to support his family: Grave digger, meter reader for natural gas companies and pinsetter at a bowling alley. And he did them all while learning English. He met and married his wife, Maureen; they started their own family and opened a small clothing store in the town. Viglione’s perseverance in life was the the American dream, but it was his constant generosity that made an impression on his children, including daughter Nicole Williams.  

“They always had an open-door policy at our home,” says Williams. “It wasn’t about money then, but just offering anybody in need of food, coffee and company a place to feel heard and seen. When a fourth cousin of my dad’s got divorced, he’d sometimes come over after working late into the night at a family restaurant and my parents would make sure he was taken care of.”  

The Vigliones opened a second small business, a children’s store one town over from Ridgway. When the stores closed years later, Viglione started a powdered metal factory. He sold that in 1999. Not one to sit still, he opened a metal harness manufacturing business. Through the years of their entrepreneurship, their generosity was always there, Williams says, but the successful businesses helped it grow.  

“When I started to see my parents make monetary donations to their church, or things they cared about, it wasn’t a shift,” she says. “I was an adult by that time and although I know they were happy to be able to make donations, I had seen their generosity be impactful in so many different ways my whole life – from opening our home to friends and family to providing jobs for our community.”  

In 2019, Tony was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was grim, but he lived for 22 months and a medical trial in Boston seemed to be helping. He would still golf and visit his family weekly, but at the end of what had seemed like a normal week, he had a fatal stroke. Maureen continued to stay with her daughter’s family weekly – making the trek from Ridgway on Thursday and going back home on Monday. Ten months after her husband passed, on a routine drive to visit her family, Maureen experienced a medical emergency and passed away in an ambulance on the way to a Pittsburgh-area hospital.  

The tragedies shook the family. Soon after, memories of their parents’ open-door policy and offers to help those in need began to shine through their grief.  

Nichole and her husband, Travis, who is president of the Pittsburgh Pirates and had become a defacto member of his in laws’ family when he was in high school, knew they wanted to honor the Vigliones through philanthropy and set an example for their six children, who range in age from teens to mid-20s. The Williams’s were not interested in starting their own foundation. Travis asked around and told Nicole that The Pittsburgh Foundation and its ability to steward funds came up again and again. They decided to start the Foundation 56 Fund at The Pittsburgh Foundation to continue Tony and Maureen’s legacy of generosity and perseverance. The fund is named for the year her father came to the U.S. They chose the name because it also offers their family a degree of anonymity in their giving.  

“But we know what it is, when we see it listed,” she says. “That’s Foundation 56, that’s our heart; our blood, sweat and tears; our soul; our family; our legacy.” 

The Fund’s focus areas are cancer patient support and advocacy, the arts, faith, and small business and career development. All fundamental parts of her family members’ lives. While they will continue to contribute to the fund, Williams also hopes to attract people with similar passions to join forces and grow the fund to make impactful change.  

“In order to live a completely beautiful and generous life you don’t have to only give monetarily,” says Williams, “But when my parents were comfortable that’s what they wanted, that’s part of how they gave. They achieved the American dream and wanted to spread their blessings beyond their beloved family.”