Residents have matched an anonymous donor’s contribution of 50-thousand dollars to the Quesnel Community Foundation.
The deadline to meet it was this past midnight and Mary Sjostrom, the Foundation’s President, says at last report they were at $67,219….
“We are extremely excited and want to thank everybody for their support and their continued support, and we’re just going to build this fund and we’ll be able to support more community groups and bursaries and scholarships.”
Sjostrom says the total could go up a little more as they have yet to add in some late donations.
With the anonymous donor’s money factored in, the total that will go to the Foundation is more than 117 thousand dollars.
The endowment has now grown to more 2.6 million dollars and Sjostrom expects that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 thousand dollars will be able to go out to local groups and organizations this year.
She also says that Quesnel’s Foundation is seen as a model for others…
“There are several other smaller communities and communities of our size that are starting up foundations, and they’re looking to us so i am hoping we can use our leadership to assist them grow it as well, because it certainly is something communities can benefit from.”
Wells and Vanderhoof are two communities that are planning on setting up foundations.