About Us

Sher­rie is the sole Trustee of the Auen Foun­da­tion and also serves as its Pro­gram Direc­tor. Raised in Ida­ho with live-in grand­par­ents, Sher­rie learned the val­ue of inter­gen­er­a­tional con­nec­tions at a young age. Sherrie’s fam­i­ly instilled in her the impor­tance of tak­ing care of neigh­bors for the greater good of the com­mu­ni­ty. She began vol­un­teer­ing as a young adult, always hav­ing an affin­i­ty for help­ing the elder­ly because she believed they were less attend­ed to than oth­ers. Lat­er in life, Sher­rie devel­oped a pas­sion for address­ing the social, health, and finan­cial chal­lenges that peo­ple face as they age.

Upon mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia in 1962, Sher­rie attend­ed col­lege and lat­er became a real estate bro­ker. She owned South Hills Prop­er­ties for 20 years in Cov­ina, where she first began hon­ing her skills in prop­er­ty investment.

When she mar­ried Ron Auen, their inter­ests, exper­tise, and pas­sions were unstop­pable. They spent more than three decades work­ing coop­er­a­tive­ly and ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to improv­ing the lives of oth­ers. Through her work at the Foun­da­tion, Sher­rie spends exten­sive time under­stand­ing the heart of an orga­ni­za­tion, who is at the helm, who ben­e­fits, and what more could be done to ensure peo­ple receive valu­able ser­vices. Beyond the joy Sher­rie humbly receives from the work she does, she is grate­ful to have been award­ed an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate of Humane Let­ters from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, San Bernardi­no, in 2013.

Catharine has served as the Senior Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Auen Foun­da­tion since 1993. With near­ly 30 years of expe­ri­ence in char­i­ta­ble pro­gram­ming with mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar non­prof­it foun­da­tions, Catharine seeks orga­ni­za­tions and part­ner­ships that enrich people’s lives.

Pri­or to her posi­tion with the Foun­da­tion, Catharine spent ten years man­ag­ing a suc­cess­ful inter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny in the gar­ment indus­try. She also co-owned a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny that assist­ed non­prof­its. Catharine earned a B.S. in Psy­chol­o­gy from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, San Bernardi­no, Palm Desert Cam­pus, and has enhanced her knowl­edge by tak­ing master’s‑level cours­es and part­ner­ing on pro­grams with the pres­ti­gious Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Andrus School of Geron­tol­ogy, focus­ing on geron­tol­ogy and inter­gen­er­a­tional issues.

Through this edu­ca­tion and her work with the Foun­da­tion, Catharine has devel­oped spe­cial­ized exper­tise in issues relat­ed to aging, care­giv­ing, and inter­gen­er­a­tional pro­grams. Grow­ing up, Catharine was influ­enced by her moth­er and grand­moth­er, who taught her the last­ing ben­e­fits of local phil­an­thropy. She is pas­sion­ate about improv­ing the lives of oth­ers, espe­cial­ly those in the mid­dle sec­tor, whom she believes are often overlooked.

Ron was the found­ing Trustee of the Auen Foun­da­tion, along with his wife, Sher­rie. Ron’s vision for the Foun­da­tion was that by focus­ing on a par­tic­u­lar area of need, they could make a greater impact on pro­grams and ser­vices with­in their com­mu­ni­ty and beyond. With his expe­ri­ence as a real estate bro­ker and gen­er­al con­trac­tor, Ron suc­cess­ful­ly guid­ed the growth of the Foun­da­tion through its diverse port­fo­lio for near­ly three decades. Dur­ing that time, he and Sher­rie more than dou­bled the Foundation’s capac­i­ty for giv­ing through a wide range of real estate and oth­er invest­ments. These for­ward-think­ing deci­sions built a lega­cy of phil­an­thropic endeav­ors aimed at improv­ing the lives of the aging pop­u­la­tion and their families.

Ron served hon­or­ably in the U.S. Army from 1948 to 1952.

Dur­ing his entre­pre­neur­ial career, he pro­vid­ed land-plan­ning ser­vices and devel­oped a vari­ety of projects with and for Sil­ver Crest Indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives. He was also Pres­i­dent and Own­er of Fore­most Land Co., Inc. From 1988 to 2019, Ron served as Pres­i­dent and Chair­man of the Board of the H.N. and Frances C. Berg­er Foun­da­tion. Although Ron was proud to say he was a grad­u­ate of the “School of Hard Knocks,” he took exten­sive col­lege and oth­er cours­es through­out his life­time. He was elat­ed to receive an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate of Humane Let­ters from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, San Bernardi­no, in 2013.