Norwich – As they reached their 80s, wealthy businessman Edward Lord and his wife, Mary, decided to establish a foundation that would continue their legacy of generous donations to local health, education and elderly welfare programs.

Beyond those rough guidelines, the rest they left to their niece and nephew, Kathryn and Jeff Lord, and to local attorney Joel Suisman, trustees of the Edward and Mary Lord Foundation.

The elderly couple lived another dozen years — both died at age 98 in 2009, five months apart — and even left it to the trustees to gather up the financial assets to be placed in the trust, secure the federal nonprofit tax status and launch the foundation.

“Ed didn’t give us any mission statement,” trust Director Kathryn Lord said. “When he passed, we gathered the money in June of 2009. It took us a year to compile the money and work with the IRS to achieve 501c3 status. And after that, he didn’t give us any guidance.”

Kathryn Lord said when her aunt and uncle were alive, she was the one who wrote the philanthropic checks for his donations, so she had a pretty good idea what the couple wanted to support: “health, elderly and disadvantaged kids. So we started out with that as our focus,” she said.

In June, the Edward and Mary Lord Foundation will mark its fifth anniversary with a legacy of giving that has totaled more than $2.17 million to 41 different local nonprofit organizations and 89 separate grant awards. The complete list of donations and the grant application process is posted on the foundation website, www.theedwardandmarylordfoundation.com.

Amounts have ranged from the $918 given to the Integrated Day Charter School for a Legos building program to the $500,000 donated to the William W. Backus Hospital over two years to create the Edward and Mary Lord Preventive Institute at Backus.

On Friday night, Backus honored the foundation with a leadership giving award through its Bennies Award program that recognizes the hospital’s largest benefactors.

Shawn Mawhiney, regional director of marketing for Backus, now part of the Hartford Healthcare system, called the support from the Lord Foundation critical to the community hospital’s ability to provide quality programs in the region. In total, the foundation has donated $600,000 to the hospital, and the Lord family has supported Backus long before the foundation was created.

“We just couldn’t say enough good things to recognize the Edward and Mary Lord Foundation for all their generosity over the years,” Mawhiney said.

The hospital’s emergency care and trauma center is named for the couple, and now the preventive health program bears their names. The program was launched two months ago and calls for assigning licensed clinical social workers in Backus’ two community health centers in Norwich and Colchester to work with repeat patients with chronic conditions who also need mental health counseling and assistance in keeping follow-up appointments to prevent worsening conditions, Mawhiney said.

Advanced practice nurses in the Hartford Healthcare system also will work with high-risk patients to try to cut down on re-hospitalizations and emergency room visits, he said.

The Lord Foundation has been equally supportive of another Norwich landmark health care organization, United Community and Family Services.

“Without the Lord Foundation, the Norwich health center would not have been completed,” said Pamela Allen Kinder, vice president of marketing and facilities.

In total, the foundation has given $800,000 to what is now the Edward and Mary Lord Health Center at 47 Town St. across from Norwichtown Commons shopping center, including “the largest single donation UCFS has ever received,” $450,000 for the first phase of the project, Kinder said.

When the renovation to expand the health center into the entire space of the former retail building faced a $300,000 shortfall last April, Kathryn Lord and Suisman presented the organization with a check to cover the entire amount.

“I am sure that Ed and Mary would be pleased and proud that their hard work, simple life and foresight is able to benefit so many people in Norwich, the town they loved so much,” Kathryn Lord said at the time of the donation.

The trust director still feels the obligation to support the Norwich institutions her aunt and uncle held dear. But recently, the trustees felt the need to expand that mission to the rest of New London County.

Lord said they will retain the core of the trust’s mission to support health, education and elderly support organizations and programs, but have added other recipients they feel the Lord patriarch would have loved – theater, arts and youth scholarships.

The foundation has awarded grants to the Spirit of Broadway Theater, the Children’s Museum of Southeastern Connecticut, the Eastern Connecticut Ballet and the Southeastern Connecticut Cultural Coalition.

In keeping with Ed Lord’s love of cinema, the group also awarded $7,200 to Norwich Community Cinema for equipment to continue its mission to show independent films and documentaries.

The community cinema group’s summer family movie series on the Norwichtown Green now is called the Edward and Mary Lord Film Series.

“That’s something that he would like,” Kathryn Lord said of her uncle, who owned and operated a string of movie theaters in eastern Connecticut during his younger years.

c.bessette@theday.com

Twitter: @Bessettetheday