Stark Family Fund grants $77,906 to County organizations

Administrator | Jun 01, 2015 | Comments 0

The Stark Family Fund awarded $77,906 to 13 Prince Edward County organizations, Monday night in the Bloomfield town Hall.

The Beatty family – Linda and Tim and their sons Kyle and Ryan – welcomed familiar and new faces and thanked the room’s volunteers. The Beattys sit on the grant selection committee to help oversee donations to social, education, cultural, recreational and other organizations.

“We want to thank everyone for being volunteers because if it wasn’t for you volunteering and putting your effort back into the community there wouldn’t be any of these organizations for us to be able to help fund,” said Linda Beatty.

She explained the Stark girls lived across the street from the Bloomfield Town Hall and noted they would have been touched to know the event was being hosted in their home-town community.

“They were very proud of their community and very silent about some of their good deeds,” Linda explained. “And they would be honoured to see things have continued on.”

The Stark Family Fund Grants, administered by the Community Foundation for Kingston and Area, were established with a bequest of more than $1.3 million from Ruth Stark, the last remaining member of a family that included four other sisters, Leata, Keitha, Sylvia and Ival.

The five sisters were lifelong residents of the village of Bloomfield, and it was their wish to see the village and county’s residents continue to be supported, particularly in the educational, health and cultural fields.

“We’re proud of what we have been able to do with the girls’ money, and to help out” added Tim Beatty. “We look forward to it every year.”

Last year, the Museums of Prince Edward County in cooperation with History Lives Here Inc. received a grant from the Stark Family Fund to produce a vignette about the Stark sisters of Bloomfield for Peter Lockyer’s History Moments video series.