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Task force receives grant

| October 1, 2022 1:00 AM

The Gregory C. Carr Foundation has granted the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations $30,000 to help support a number of human rights initiatives in the region.

The task force announced the grant award Thursday, and noted the work of Greg Carr, an Idaho native who is a philanthropist and human rights activist with a long history of supporting human rights in North Idaho.

“Our work promoting human rights has been greatly expanded due to Greg’s generous annual gift to the task force over recent years,” said KCTFHR President Christie Wood, in a press release. “We are so indebted to this man.”

Working with Tony Stewart, a task force founder and current board member, Carr purchased the former Aryan Nations compound after the civil trial in which the Keenans were awarded the property. Carr paid for the dismantling of the compound and deeded the property to the North Idaho College Foundation. The property was recently sold and the proceeds were used to establish the Gregory Carr Human Rights endowment with the NIC Foundation.

In 2002, when Stewart was president of the Human Rights Education Institute, Carr awarded $1 million to HREI for programming work. At the same time, Carr commissioned a large marble piece with the preamble to the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights carved into the stone and gifted the marble to the city of Coeur d’Alene.

The gifted package also included $20,000 to the University of Idaho for a lecture in honor of Catholic priest Bill Wassmuth.

“I cannot overstate my admiration for my friend Greg over all these years as he has become an Idaho human rights icon in his beloved state as well as across America and internationally,” Stewart said, in the release. “No one has been more blessed than I through my friendships with Greg and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, two giants in the campaign to see that every human being is treated with respect and dignity.”