June 2008
Press Release
Tucker Community Endowment Foundation recently announced the Smith Trust awards that will benefit many
area organizations. The late Kep and Alice Smith, a well known Parsons couple, established a trust with
Citizen’s National Bank that directed the bank to distribute income to two entities, one of which was Tucker
Community Endowment Foundation. Although the funds are unrestricted, the Foundation has a letter written
by Alice Smith outlining a variety of community organizations she and her husband wished to support.
Foundation members use that letter as the guiding document for distributions from the trust income.
According to Rob Burns, Executive Director of the Foundation, 2008 distributions from the Smith Trust will be
used to supplement scholarship awards and to support the following organizations:
Community Disaster Funding | $ 7,500.00 | Canaan Valley Fire Department – For the purchase and installation of a backup electrical generator to provide an evacuation center and emergency command center for that part of the county |
$ 7,500.00 | Tucker County Commission – For the new and updated equipment related to the county’s portable command center. | |
Designated Grants | $ 2,000.00 | Tucker County 4-H summer camp program |
$ 1,000.00 | Salvation Army activities in Tucker County | |
$ 500.00 | WV Public Radio | |
$ 500.00 | WV Public Television | |
$ 5,000.00 | Five Rivers Library | |
$ 1,000.00 | Mt. Top Library | |
$ 2,000.00 | Tucker County EMS | |
$ 1,000.00 | Tucker County Historical Society | |
Community Health Support | $ 5,000.00 | Cortland Acres Nursing Home – Strategic planning funds. |
$ 5,000.00 | Friends of Cortland Acres – funding for a new handicapped accessible van. | |
$ 5,000.00 | Tucker County Senior Citizens to help fund a wheelchair accessible van. | |
Other | $ 10,000.00 | TCEF development and administration. Funds to support Run For It awards. |
Kep and Alice were lifelong residents of Tucker County. Kep was a charter member of the Tucker Community
Endowment Foundation Board of Directors. In 1991 the couple established one of the first Endowed Funds of
TCEF.
The Foundation serves as a distribution center for community based charitable giving. TCEF manages
more than $17 million in donated assets. Donors are able to make unrestricted, restricted, or pass-through donations
to community causes they wish to support. Contributions are often made in memory or honor of loved ones.
Donors that wish to name their own fund and the distribution guidelines have the option of establishing an
Endowed Fund of TCEF. The Foundation invests donated funds and uses only the income earned to distribute
annual grant and scholarship awards.
For more information regarding the Smith Trust, or any Endowed Fund of TCEF, call the Foundation office at
478-2930 or visit www.tuckerfoundation.net. The Foundation serves Barbour, Grant, Preston, Pocahontas,
Randolph and Tucker Counties.
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