Rotary completes $50k pledge

Bequeathment to Rotary pushes bursary fund toward $1 million

GRAVENHURST - It’s a little bit of give and take that makes the world go around.
Accepting one generous donation for $25,000 with their right hand and passing out another $10,000 with the left, the Gravenhurst Rotary Club bolstered two community funds Dec. 17, just in time for Christmas.
With this past Monday their last business meeting of the year, members of the Rotary Club completed a five-year fundraising pledge to the South Muskoka Hospital Foundation two years early by handing over $10,000, while another bequeathment to the club has their bursary endowment fund now over $900,000 and headed to its first million.
“The support is very much appreciated,” said the foundation’s executive director Colin Miller, asking the Rotary members to give themselves a round of applause for their commitment.
In 2009 the club pledged $50,000 to the foundation and with a $10,000 cheque handed over on Monday, the campaign concluded two years early.
The five-year pledge to the foundation is the second fundraising campaign the Rotary club has ended two years early in the past two weeks, having handed over the final $10,000 of a five-year, $50,000 pledge to the Rotary’s Bursary Endowment Fund.
Club president Steven Hayhurst said the organization was able to pay off the pledge to the foundation early, thanks in large part to a bequeathment to the club for its endowment fund that freed up other monies.
“It’s just fantastic,” he said, adding with that bequeathment, the club is now over $900,000 in its endowment fund. “We could very well hit a million (dollars) by this spring.”
Bursary fund committee chair Ken Little explained the $25,000 gift to the fund came from the estate of the late Isabel Heels and a memorial bursary will now live on in her name. It was a final injection from the estate, which, with the $25,000, now has contributed $80,000 to the Rotary club’s efforts.
Heels passed away in early December of 2011 in Midland and left money to several local organizations including the Rotary club, Trinity United Church, South Muskoka Hospital, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the cancer and diabetes associations and the local Lions club. Little explained she had been employed with the Gravenhurst branch of the Dominion Bank, later the Toronto Dominion, for more than 44 years while also being a stalwart volunteer for several local organizations.
“Her friends and neighbours all agreed you could count on Isabel to lend a helping hand whether it was preparing for a social event at the church, the curling club or volunteering,” he said.
The financial injection takes the club’s endowment fund to a little more than $900,000 to end the year and will be used to help fund living and tuition expenses for local people heading on to further education.

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