The Bayardelle Foundation

What she began, we build together.

The Bayardelle Foundation is dedicated to expanding opportunity through education, the arts, culture, and community.

Archival portrait of a woman in round eyeglasses and a dark blouse with a delicate necklace, before a painted autumn backdrop. — Bayardelle family archive Pl. I

I. Claudie

Claudie Bayardelle came to New York from Haiti and spent more than twenty-five years serving the Bronx.

As an executive working on behalf of the borough’s inner-city communities, she gave a quarter century to the neighborhoods that became her home. At home, she held her family to the same standard she brought to her work: study seriously, make something of your gifts, and use them in service of others.

The Bayardelle Foundation grew from her example, and she remains part of its work as Honorary Chair. Its purpose is to keep those values in practice: opening the kinds of doors that education and the arts opened for her children.

Claudie’s story

II. Family

Four children. One household. Carried forward.

Together, Claudie and Dr. John Bayardelle raised four children whose lives and accomplishments reflect the values of education, creativity, service, and ambition that Claudie instilled in their family.

01 Anastasia Medicine Pediatrician; President, Association of Black Women Physicians
02 Marie Health care Chief Executive, Lifeline Telephone Triage Network
03 Jeannette The stage Tony Award–nominated Broadway performer and writer
04 John Stewardship Treasurer of the Foundation

Four women standing together and smiling at a celebration beneath a tiled ceiling. — Bayardelle family archive Pl. III

A smiling young girl in a plaid blouse and red vest stands in a living room. — Bayardelle family archive Pl. IV

School portrait of a smiling young girl with braided hair and red beads, wearing a tan turtleneck. — Bayardelle family archive Pl. V

Portrait of Jeannette Bayardelle, smiling, outdoors in soft natural light. — Jeannette Bayardelle, Founder

III. From the Bronx to Broadway

Jeannette Bayardelle, Founder

Born and raised in the Bronx, Jeannette trained at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and graduated from Hunter College. Over some twenty years on the professional stage, she has appeared on Broadway in The Color Purple, where she went on to play Celie, Hair, and & Juliet.

Her performance as Mrs. Neilsen in Girl From the North Country earned a 2022 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She also wrote and starred in her own musical, SHIDA.

She founded The Bayardelle Foundation so that the opportunities that shaped her path would be open to the young people who come next.

About the Founder

IV. Purpose

A family raised in the Bronx went on to medicine, health care, and the Broadway stage. The Foundation exists so that what made that possible — education, the arts, and someone who believed in the work — reaches further than one household.

V. What comes next

For the generations that follow.

The Bayardelle Foundation is dedicated to expanding opportunity through education, the arts, culture, and community.

EducationThe discipline and access that open every other door.
The ArtsPerformance and creative training as a serious path, not a pastime.
Culture & CommunityRooted in the Bronx and in New York, where the family’s story began.

Our work

VI. Leadership