Brad Hathaway isn’t taking any more donations of stamps, thank you, but the longtime Mattapoisett activist remains eager to keep his Quaker Missions going.
Hathaway was recently recognized as one of the recipients of an annual award from the American Philatelic Society, the national gold standard of stamp collectors.
“I can’t go to Ohio because of my health,” he said, referring to the APS event that will recognize Luff Award recipients, but he will go to Rhode Island next month where a stamp club involved in his longtime cause will honor him.
Established in the memory of former APS president John N. Luff, the Luff Award has since 1940 been the most prestigious award that the American Philatelic Society can bestow upon living philatelists. Hathaway was highlighted with other Luff Award recipients in the July issue of American Philatelist, the world’s longest continuously published philatelic magazine.
Nearly an 80-year philatelist with life memberships in both the American Philatelic Society and the Hawaiian Philatelic Society and 30 years in the New Bedford Stamp Collectors Club, Hathaway launched his effort to use his stamp-collecting pastime as a vehicle for philanthropy in 1997.
“I did it through my (Quaker) meeting in Mattapoisett. It was beautiful because they allowed me to just take over, make all the decisions,” he recalled.
Minus red tape, Hathaway was able to streamline decisions and put together a program that raised and distributed $105,000 for causes such as third-world countries and Native Americans for voluntary service that aids stamp collecting and collectors.
“Some of it went right here in town,” he said, noting a member of his Quaker church that needed assistance. “We paid her taxes one year with it.”
Hathaway’s involvement in stamp collecting saw him serve on the SEAPEX committees formed by New Bedford and Cape Cod-based clubs and the committee for the initial issue of the Moby Dick stamped envelope in New Bedford.
Upon his 1997 retirement as a local newspaper columnist, Hathaway launched Quaker Missions, collecting mostly used stamps from Quakers worldwide and also from an Arizona-based prisoner looking to help the cause. Assisted by local volunteers from other faiths, Hathaway prepared stamp packets and sold them for $7.
The Interchurch Council of Greater New Bedford presented Hathaway with its Sydney Adams Award “for distinguished service in ecumenical ministry.” Several times in the waning years, the bulk of sales were transferred to Quakers, first in California and then in Indiana, where it continues to this day.
The family wants to be very clear that the project has ended. Hathaway continues to receive stamp donations that he has to find a way to discard. He had a sale scheduled and had to cancel because he was in the hospital.
The limitations of Parkinson’s disease and a recent diagnosis of kidney failure requiring dialysis have thrown roadblocks in Hathaway’s path, but they have not changed his attitude toward giving. In the face of these challenges, he remains optimistic, even jovial in his laughter at the calamity inside and around him.
Pointing to piles and piles of stamps in his house, Hathaway says, “this is getting ready for the sale, this is how far I got.”
The extensive collection represents donations including but not limited to that of a New York-based company focused in a particular part of a collection and donated the rest, some to Hathaway’s cause and another portion to a Rhode Island-based stamp club where Hathaway’s cousin is a member and has held auctions of Hathaway’s collection.
“That money would go to me, which in the beginning would go to Quaker Missions, now still active – they’re still going to be selling but this time for the (Mattapoisett) Land Trust,” he explained.
The remaining stamps will yet be sold to fund the Mattapoisett Land Trust scholarship that exists in memory of his wife Priscilla. Hathaway says $15,000 has been raised toward the annual scholarship.
The scholarship, which is not payable until after the first semester of college, was awarded for the first time this year in the amount of $1,000 to 2023 Old Rochester Regional High School graduate Jed Dupree, who won two Gold Key awards at the state level and planned to attend Mass College of Art this fall.
As a founder of the Land Trust with Priscilla, Hathaway is determined to attend next April’s 50th anniversary of the land-protection organization.
Oh, and in between his medical appointments, Hathaway is still walking. He isn’t planning another 25,000-mile journey around the globe, but determination fuels his continued walk to help those living on it.
By Mick Colageo
I want to sale my friend old stamps