NASHUA – Praising Nashua Children’s Home officials and employees as "hard-working, helpful, good, caring and friendly people" driven by "a sense of fairness and empathy," Lakes Region private real-estate investor John Hyslip has followed up his 2014 donation of $26,000 with a pledge that ranks as the largest the agency has ever received.

Hyslip, the principal of Credit Tenant Capital, a Plymouth-based firm that specializes in financial strategies for large-scale real estate sellers and buyers, presented a $150,000 gift earlier this month to the Children’s Home, bringing to $200,000 the total amount he and his family have donated to the agency.

"The gift is the largest single donation of any kind in our history," Children’s Home Executive Director Dave Villiotti said last week.

Calling Hyslip "a longtime supporter" of the agency, Villiotti said the $26,700 Hyslip donated two years ago was until now the largest single nonfoundation grant in its history.

Hyslip and his son, Jack, delivered that donation in person, presenting it to Villiotti in conjunction with the 2014 version of its annual "All Day Power Play," a fundraiser in which volunteer hockey players take part in a marathon, 24-hour hockey game.

Villiotti said the gift gave the 2014 fundraiser "a significant jump start.

"We’ll be celebrating this assist for a long time to come," he added, invoking a bit of hockey parlance.

Nobody likely knew at the time that the Hyslips would come back two years later with a donation that topped even the generous $100,000 grant from the Yawkey Foundation in 2002.

In the letter to Villiotti accompanying this month’s record donation, Hyslip said the gift "is unconditional … to be used at your sole discretion, because I trust you."

The donation, Hyslip wrote, was inspired in large part by his realization that agencies like the Children’s Home, and their "kind, caring and compassionate" donors, are the ones who so often "rally behind children who may have been neglected or abused by their parents" and lack support from other family members.

"It’s now clear to me," he added.

Having lost his parents before he attained "any measure of success," and therefore unable "to do anything for either of them," Hyslip said he is making the pledge "in the spirit of reciprocity."

He also asks that Villiotti focus "as you see fit" on Children’s Home residents who "age out" of the residential programs.

"While I understand you offer a range of services to assist them in making the transition … to a fulfilling life," Hyslip wrote, he asks that Villiotti provide a "small stipend" when they are "sent out to survive on their own.

"Millennials need assistance well into their 20s to avoid the many negative situations that confront a young person in today’s world," he added.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.