SCARBOROUGH – A pair of longtime Scarborough residents have capped off a history of giving with a final donation to their local fire department.

Fire Chief Mike Thurlow announced last week that his department has received a $10,000 gift from the estate of Louis and Tina Fineberg, residents of the Pine Point neighborhood since the 1970s, who are perhaps best known for running the Music Mart on Congress Street in Portland for nearly 30 years. Per the Finebergs’ wishes, half of the bequest will go to the Pine Point Ladies Auxiliary. The other half, said Thurlow, will help to buy a new thermal imaging camera for the department.

Mrs. Fineberg died in 2011 at the age of 94, while Mr. Fineberg passed away this past April at age 101. Both were residents of Scarborough Terrace in their final years.

“As their health declined, Louis and Tina needed to call on our services with some frequency,” said Thurlow. “They were warm, gracious individuals and this act of generosity certainly speaks volumes as to their love of our community and their appreciation for the services they received.”

The Finebergs were married for more than 70 years, after meeting as shoppers at the Porteous store on Congress Street. As Louis Fineberg told the legend in later years, he’d tried to impress the future Mrs. Fineberg – then Tina Horwich – by commenting positively on a fur on display in the store, only to be told he had no taste. Still, the pair shared a common love of music, if not furs. Tina Fineberg was a gifted pianist and Louis a master of wind instruments, such as the clarinet and the saxophone.

In addition to being regular music boosters, the Finebergs were strong proponents of good nutrition and made many donations to Meals on Wheels. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fineberg was “devoted to animals” and the couple supported many canine causes, including helping the Scarborough Police Department buy and train one of its first K-9 patrol dogs.

Then, in February 2012, Louis Fineberg created a trust to help support public education in memory of his late wife, who had died the previous year. The $100,000 Louis and Tina Fineberg Trust has since made annual $10,000 allocations to the Scarborough Education Foundation, money used primarily to support the school department’s food service programming. Money also is used to cover grants in support of the foundation’s mission, to “enhance academic excellence by funding innovative and creative educational programs and initiatives that fall outside traditional school budget considerations.”

Creation of the trust came just two months after the foundation was established, thus becoming instrumental in its early success.

“The Fineberg Trust provides our Foundation with a terrific start, one that will allow us to take an enormous jump forward,” said foundation President Will Leadley, at the time.

“I can’t take it with me,” joked Louis Fineberg in an interview given to an area newspaper shortly after the trust was created. “I can’t think of a better thing to do than to throw it around where it’s needed, where it can do the most good.”

Louis Fineberg