Humble bequest adds up for charities
SANDPOINT — A local woman lived her twilight years in solitude, but in death, she’ll impact more people than anyone will ever realize.
The small fortune that she amassed in life will support a number of charitable Northwest organizations through the Community Focus Trust. Despite the generosity of her contribution, she specified to the Panhandle State Bank associates managing her trust that she remain anonymous.
“She was a very humble woman in a lot of different ways,” PSB senior vice president of trust and investment Services Dale Schuman, who worked personally with the unnamed donor, said.
The philanthropist specified that she wanted her money to help people who hadn’t made destructive life decisions but were rather healthy members of society down on their luck. She specified animals, women and children as particular concerns.
“For example, she didn’t want her money to assist criminals,” Schuman said. “She wanted to help good social beings that had fallen on hard times.”
Representatives whose organizations qualified could apply for grant consideration through a two-step process. First, they drafted a proposal about their nonprofit and how they fit the social parameters that the late donor specified. Next, they answered a series of questions to ensure that the benefactor would have approved.
“While we were helping her grow her money, she gave us a very good sense of exactly what she wanted her money to accomplish after she was gone,” Schuman said.
Intermountain Community Bank, PSB’s parent company, hosted a ceremony on Monday in Spokane to announce the 12 most significant grant winners. Bonner County organizations represented two of that number, with Bonner Community Food Center receiving $50,000 and Priest River Animal Shelter receiving $82,680. Those total sums will be distributed in portions four times each year over a five-year period.
“This grant will surely be a blessing,” program director Alice Wallace said. “We’ve been plugging away for the past while. Times are tough, but we haven’t had to turn anyone away like some food banks have. And this grant will definitely help.”
Other organizations that will benefit from the trust include the Boys and Girls Club of Spokane, Our Place Community Ministries, Post Falls Food Bank, St. Maries Volunteer Community Clinic, Shoshone County Women’s Resource Center, Whitman County Humane Society, St. Vincent de Paul Salvage Bureau, Transitional Programs for Women and Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery. Schuman said that about a quarter million worth of the $1.5 million trust will be used to help smaller charity organizations as well.
“It’s definitely going to provide a measure of security during these difficult times,” BCFC assistant director Jennie Aus said.
According to Schuman, that’s exactly what the unnamed benefactor would have wanted. He said she was a remarkably headstrong and independent individual. Born in the 1920s in New York, she started a photography career on a cruise ship and eventually became a prominent shutter-bug, rubbing elbows with the celebrities of the time. Afterward, she started an art gallery in California and finally settled into retirement in Sandpoint. Although she lived a fairly isolated lifestyle, she knew exactly how she wanted to impact her community.
“She lived the last 10 years of her life very frugally to set up this trust,” Schuman said. “It was in her mind as her goal long before she died.”