When it comes to making an impact on her Adirondack community, few surpass Lake Placid’s Caroline Lussi. It’s a passion she picked up during her “magical” childhood.
“I watched my mother, Lili Gadeke Draper, give back to the community, from helping to expand the one-room schoolhouse, to nurturing young ski racers and volunteering with ski clubs,” she says. “Supporting the community is in my blood.”
Caroline grew up a ski racer at Gore and Belleayre Mountains and later became an instructor at Whiteface. Her dad, Arthur Draper, was a forest ranger who passed down his love of the Forest Preserve, telling her, “We may not have a lot of money, but we own the
mountains and forests outside our door.”
Caroline married Serge Lussi soon after graduating from Paul Smith’s College (PSC) and they built an extraordinary life with their children, Arthur, Cristina, and Katrina. They became a formidable business team, developing the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Lake Placid Club, and Lake Placid Marina.
She followed in her mom’s footsteps, contributing to the success of numerous local organizations and individuals. Her first big donation endowed chair for PSC Professor Curt Stager through Adirondack Foundation. She later established a donor advised fund to help simplify her local giving.
We did not want to create our own foundation and I did not know everything. The Foundation made it easy.”
“We did not want to create our own foundation and I did not know everything,” she says, but the Foundation made it easy. “The staff is local, it’s easy to trust them, they prioritized our relationship.”
When she wanted to do more for Lake Placid, her daughter Katrina remembered a middle school field trip to Washington DC as a critical childhood experience. Caroline set up an endowment fund to ensure eighth graders have a chance to visit DC. To this day, parents thank her and Serge for this experience. “It’s so good to see the impact it is having on the kids and families of this community,” she says.
Caroline is passing the torch to the next generation. “The ball is now in our kids’ court. We are passing philanthropy on to their generation and they are deeply engaged.”
