Marvin and Joyce Benjamin

We Are ALL Different is a middle school diversity awareness project funded by the Marvin and Joyce Benjamin Fund. This fund was established to combat hatred and prejudice.

Biography of Mr. & Mrs. Marvin Benjamin*

          Marvin and Joyce Benjamin were a young Jewish couple who moved to Hardin County, Kentucky in the 1950's. Both were very musically talented, and they opened a music store in Elizabethtown known as the Melody Music Shop.  They would later open music stores in Radcliff and Brandenburg, Kentucky. 

          For over 30 years, Marvin and Joyce Benjamin sold musical instruments, sheet music and taught many youngsters how to play various musical instruments.  Their specialty was the accordion.

            Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin lived a rather simple life on a few acres of land east of Elizabethtown.

          In the late 1990's after Joyce Benjamin died, Marvin Benjamin decided to leave their estate for the purpose of fighting hatred and bigotry. As a young Jewish man in Illinois, he had experienced bigotry as a result of his faith. As a result, Mr. Benjamin established in his Last Will and Testament a fund with the express purpose of "fighting hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism". This is a perpetual fund established through the Hardin County Community Foundation with the yearly endowment being used as Mr. Benjamin directed.

          The day Marvin Benjamin made his will, he posed the following question to his attorney: "What can one person do in this fight against hatred and bigotry?"  He then proceeded to answer his own question through the establishment of the Benjamin Fund, which now has assets in excess of 1.6 million dollars, the life savings of  Marvin and Joyce Benjamin which has been dedicated to the principles in which they believed.

                                                     * Our thanks to John J. Scott for the above Bio