Fourth Street Preserve donation honors memory of Ted Becker
To honor the memory of Ted Becker, former Lewes mayor, DeLea Founders Insurance Trust Group Self Insured Municipal Program recently donated $1,000 to the Fourth Street Preserve campaign at the Greater Lewes Foundation.
Becker served as chair of DFIT until the time of his passing in 2024. Becker had helped launch the first group workers compensation insurance program for Delaware municipalities in 2008. Today, 31 Delaware municipalities and their employees benefit from the program.
At a Jan. 22 meeting for officials from those municipalities, the donation was announced by Theresa DeSanto of Strategic Insurance Partners, DFIT program administrator, and Mark Grossbard, SIP CEO.
Mike Petit deMange, DFIT vice chair, also presented a memorial plaque in Becker’s honor to James Ford, chair of the Fourth Street Preserve campaign, and Ellen Lorraine McCabe, Lewes city manager.
Ford, also a former Lewes mayor, accepted the gifts on behalf of Becker and acknowledged his work with the effort to preserve the remaining 30 acres of forested land in Lewes from development.
Ford said to date, funds raised to acquire the preserve had reached the $6 million mark, or 75% of the total needed, with half of that amount coming from Lewes businesses and residents. Noting the interest of Delaware Forest Service in using the Lewes project as a model for the state, Ford encouraged attending city officials to consider creating urban forests in their own municipalities.
