People going to the movies in the 1920s had to wait during each show while a projectionist changed film reels by hand.  In Portsmouth, Virginia, audiences enjoyed a separate performance during this technical intermission thanks to the accomplished musical talent of a confident child who would take the stage and play his violin for a few minutes.  This child was Milton Goldberg.

Born in New Jersey, growing up in Virginia and finally moving to North Carolina in 1938, Milton brought with him to Winston-Salem his wife, Vera, and a well-developed love of the arts.  Jobs were scarce as the depression was taking its toll on the country, but Milton found work as a smelter for Douglas Battery and eventually started his own metal alloy company. Always an advocate of spirited entertainment—not to mention an enthusiastic performer himself—Milton later confirmed his commitment to the arts by giving his business property to the N.C. School of the Arts to be used as a prop-shop and costume storage building.

But this wasn't Milton and Vera Goldberg's only generous contribution to the artistic landscape of Winston-Salem. In fact, one successful outcome of their philanthropic natures would materialize after their deaths, coming as a $10,000 grant to the Cinema Society through the unrestricted endowment of the Vera Goldberg Memorial Fund. This creative gift to the community, made possible by the Goldberg's willingness to trust The Winston-Salem Foundation with an unrestricted financial donation, affords people in Winston-Salem an opportunity to enjoy unique and socially provocative films. Many of the films are shown in the magnificent Stevens Center, where the Cinema Society, in collaboration with the North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking, holds its Films on Fourth Series. Ask 81 year-old Lorraine Shearer, a local citizen who depends on the Cinema Society for artistic sustenance, about the emotional impact of these cinematic offerings and her face lights up: "After seeing some of these films, it makes me want to become a pioneer of reform!"

All this thanks to the enriching possibilities of unrestricted giving and the generous, socially-responsible spirits of Vera and Milton Goldberg, whose positive impact on the community would come in the form of a city project they couldn't even imagine but in a way poignantly consistent with their creative, open-hearted lives.