Delaplaine Foundation, Inc. is committed to the enrichment of communities and families by helping Frederick County and the region move forward with the greatest possible quality of life. So too has the Delaplaine family for the past 275 years.

John Thomas Schley, a Delaplaine ancestor, was one of Frederick’s earliest town and religious leaders. He built the first house in Frederick and left an indelible mark on the community’s educational, spiritual, cultural and charitable development.

A century later in 1880, William T. Delaplaine–grandfather of Foundation Chairman George B. Delaplaine, Jr.–established a print shop in 1880 that in 1883 evolved into a newspaper publishing house, which produced The News, a local newspaper. In 1888, he incorporated the business as the Great Southern Printing and Manufacturing Company. The Delaplaine family purchased rival newspaper, The Post, in 1916 and published both under the same management. The Delaplaine association with the media industry was not limited to The Frederick News-Post or its print business. Fifty years later, in 1966, George B. Delaplaine, Jr., introduced Frederick County to cable television. Launched as Frederick Cablevision, Inc., and later renamed GS Communications, Inc., the cable company grew to serve more than 120,000 subscribers in four states.

The assets of the Great Southern Printing and Manufacturing Company were family owned and operated until the cable division and newspaper/commercial printing division was sold in 2001. Whether in print or onscreen, the Delaplaine family has consistently endeavored to operate its business enterprises from the perspective of “the public good.” As a means of perpetuating and sustaining that benevolent philosophy, George B. Delaplaine, Jr., his wife Bettie, and their four sons established Delaplaine Foundation, Inc. as a private family foundation in 2001, along with additional founding trustees Marlene B. Young and Philip W. Hammond. Since then, Delaplaine Foundation has distributed grants totaling over $30 million dollars to more than 300 nonprofit organizations.