Virginia Kricun, celebrated corporate social policy planner and longtime civic activist, has died at 84

Virginia Kricun, 84, of Audubon, celebrated and groundbreaking corporate social policy planner, longtime civic activist, former banker, publisher, author, and consultant, died Monday, April 1, of complications from a stroke at her home in the Shannondell retirement community.

Born in Philadelphia, a graduate of Bensalem High School, and a longtime resident of Radnor, Mrs. Kricun was an energetic and innovative director of community relations at Sun Co. in the 1970s and ‘80s. It was a time during which corporate philanthropists were seeking direction, and Mrs. Kricun generated many effective and high-profile funding partnerships worth millions of dollars in 12 states and abroad.

She focused much of her philanthropic attention on broad initiatives such as women’s rights, drug addiction, historical preservation, and protections for nature and animals. “A society can be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable,” she said in a video posted several years ago by the Chester County Community Foundation.

She took a personal interest in many of her projects and helped create the Avenue of the Arts on South Broad Street in 1977. She supported the Philadelphia Green project that produced more than 400 community gardens and championed the expansion of theaters and performing arts centers across the region.

She worked in the 1970s as vice president of public affairs at Western Savings Bank and was the first president of what became Delaware Valley Grantmakers. She was a founding board member of the Women’s Way nonprofit and cofounder of the trailblazing Delaware Valley Interfaith Group.

“Her open-minded embrace of people’s beliefs led her to address divisions and embrace inclusiveness,” her family said in a tribute.

She was interested in housing and education issues, and directed corporate funds to museums, theaters, city projects, the Girl Scouts, and other social service nonprofits. She spoke at seminars, sat on panels and committees, and said in the CCCF video: “Never fear failure but be terrified by regret. … Little differences inspire and collectively make a big difference.”

She worked as a business consultant after retiring from Sun in the late 1980s, and much of her expertise came from earlier roles as co-owner of Morgin Press publishing house, partner at a marketing firm, and assistant trust analyst at Fidelity Bank.

She won awards from the city, the Center for Responsible Funding, Fairmount Park Commission, Urban League, and other organizations. She and her husband, Morrie, cowrote a coffee-table photo book, Elvis: 1956 Reflections, in 1991, and she created the Kricun Charitable Fund at the Chester County Community Foundation after he died in 2020.

Friends and former colleagues called her encouraging and generous. They praised “her indomitable spirit” in an online tribute, and one friend said: “She had the ability to be an enlightening force for good.”

She said in the CCCF video: “Individual effort makes a real difference. It also improves our humanity by caring for those who are vulnerable.”

Virginia Brauner was born July 3, 1939, in Philadelphia. She lived in Spring Garden as a young girl and moved to rural Bensalem as a teenager in the 1950s.

She met University of Pennsylvania radiology professor Morrie Kricun at a party, and they married in 1977, and lived for decades in Radnor. She served on the Lower Providence Township Planning Committee for a time and traveled abroad with her husband after she retired as he studied the remains of prehistoric humans.

Friends and colleagues called her Ginny and celebrated her 70th birthday in 2009 with a big bash at the old Prince Music Theater on Chestnut Street. She added the middle initial M to her author’s byline and remained a trusted personal adviser to Sun Co. executive Ted Burtis after she retired.

She believed in second chances, loved to talk about fashion, and vacationed often in Ocean City. She said in the CCCF video that her best advice to young people was: “Get involved. Make a difference. Be fearless.”

“She was a wise, practical and almost always optimistic woman whose life experience warranted a Ph.D. from the School of Hard Knocks,” said longtime friend and colleague Carol Coren. “She had a firm belief that good things are possible when well-meaning and informed people dedicate attention and resources to problems, challenges, and aspirations.”

Marjorie Samoff, another longtime friend and colleague, said: “She had a gift for finding solutions to even the most difficult problems.”

Mrs. Kricun is survived by a brother-in-law, nieces, nephews, cousins, and other relatives.

Services were held on April 8.

Donations in her name may be made to the Kricun Charitable Fund, Chester County Community Foundation, 28 W. Market St., West Chester, Pa. 19382.