Barry J. Vine was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut at a time when the Legion Avenue neighborhood was filled with immigrants, mom and pop shops, and kids playing baseball together on the streets. Determined to help himself and his family out of poverty, Barry began working as a young teenager and eventually starting his own jewelry company in 1968, Vine Products Manufacturing Company, a thriving business that he spearheaded until his retirement.

Barry never forgot the community that raised him. He was a lifelong benefactor of the Orchard Street Shul, where he had his Bar Mitzvah, aided soup kitchens and animal shelters liberally, serving as Treasurer of District Animal Control and donating fresh produce to food pantries on a monthly basis. He was a member of the Board of the Directors at the Jewish Community Center, and he founded and chaired the JCC’s Barry J. Vine Send a Kid to Camp Scholarship Fund. He was a board member of the American Diabetes Association, the Jewish Federation, and Recording for the Blind, and took on various leadership and fundraising roles for the Amity Teen Center, American Liver Foundation, the Woodbridge Ambulance Drive, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, ALS Connecticut Chapter, and Volunteer Stroke Rehabilitation. He had a special love for senior citizens and was the fairy godfather of The Towers, where he donated routinely to the Towers Gift Shop and planned monthly excursions and presents for the Towers residents.

Barry is missed deeply by his family and by the community he loved so well.