Smart Giving
Fall 2014
a publication of the central new york community foundation
in this issue
Bequest Establishes $1 Million Scholarship Fund for Phoenix Central School
Women’s Fund Reaches $1 Million Goal page 3
Robert & Roberta Hurd met at Phoenix Central School in the 1930s. A new scholarship established in their memory will benefit future students.
The Linns Plan Legacy Gift for Animal Welfare page 5
Cancer Infusion Room Gives Children Comfort page 9
Phoenix Central School graduates will soon have a new opportunity for assistance with college costs thanks to a large scholarship fund recently established by an alumna of the district. After the March 2014 passing of Roberta Hurd, a graduate of the Class of 1939, the Robert & Roberta Hurd Scholarship Fund was established with a bequest gift to the Central New York Community Foundation – totaling upwards of $1 million. What may be most remarkable about this story is that Roberta and Robert led fairly modest lives. Robert worked as a tool and die maker and Roberta worked her entire professional life as an accountant. They were a devoted couple who were rich in love for one another. They remembered fondly their days in the Phoenix schools where they met during the 1930s. Robert died in 1992, three months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. Roberta went on to live another 20 years, but she always missed the man she said was her true soul mate. Roberta began her relationship with the Community Foundation in 1993, when she quietly reached out to establish a scholarship fund in her husband’s memory. In addition to naming the fund as a beneficiary of her estate, she also took steps to increase the amount of her gift by donating the ownership of a $500,000 life insurance policy and establishing a Charitable Remainder Trust. The Community Foundation will invest and administer the fund and the school’s scholarship selection committee will select student recipients. The fund will annually award a $40,000 scholarship to a graduating senior, which will be paid out over 4 years. This is the largest private scholarship ever awarded through the Phoenix Central School District, located in a primarily rural Oswego County community 15 miles northwest of Syracuse.
New Performance Management Learning Community Begins page 10
Roberta’s love for her husband and their alma mater motivated her gift - that love will now live on in the lives of the many students who will benefit from it. While the student beneficiaries of the Hurds’ thoughtfulness will not know them, they will surely appreciate their generous and unselfish desire to invest in their futures. Visit cnycf.org/hurd to read an extended version of this story.