|
The Board of Trustees of Gehlen Catholic Schools Endowment Fund
marked its 20th anniversary during its annual meeting in August in
Le Mars. The Fund’s financial support of the school passed the $1
million mark with its payment in August. During the past 20 years,
the Endowment Fund investment portfolio has provided $1,028,489 of
earnings to the school’s operating budget, tuition assistance to
Gehlen students in grades K-12 and college scholarships to Gehlen
high school graduates. The trustees held an anniversary celebration
gathering of Fund supporters in late October.
The Fund also announced the recent completion of a major gift
investment into the school’s tuition assistance fund. Mr. Don
Waite, a graduate of Gehlen’s predecessor St. Joseph’s High School
and now living in California, has donated stock shares worth over
$44,000 in memory of his mother, Eva Waite. The earnings from these
restricted investments go to tuition assistance for students
attending Gehlen Catholic Schools grades kindergarten through high
school.
All the donations to the Endowment Fund continue to be prudently
invested for the long-term future of the school. None of the
donations have been spent, only the earnings from the invested
principal are spent in support of Gehlen Catholic’s operating budget
and K-12 student tuition assistance. The goal of the Fund has
always been to build a financial foundation for Catholic education
for the Le Mars area. The Fund provides a choice to Gehlen
supporters for their large gifts to be invested for the school’s
future. The Fund has proved that over the last 20 years the
discipline to hold all of its donations in investments and still
provides the school a reliable source of income for its operations.
The school encourages continued giving to this Fund so that the
earnings can become an even more significant contribution to the
school’s budget.
The school’s Endowment Fund was founded in 1987 by the Gehlen
Catholic School Board of Education when Nick Puhl was board
president. Puhl, as the Endowment Fund’s volunteer CPA, along with
then school administrator Rev. Merlin Schrad and Le Mars attorney
Robert Dull, successfully established the trust as a separate legal
nonprofit entity to be governed by a board of trustees. Puhl was
the Fund’s first secretary-treasurer and has been the Fund’s
administrator for the past 20 years. Dick Ahlers of Le Mars has
served the Fund as its board chairperson for all 20 years and was
re-elected at the annual meeting for another one-year term.
During the past 20 years, the Fund has received a variety of gifts
of cash, securities, farmland, life insurance and annuity proceeds.
Sources of gifts have come from direct gifts, the alumni annual
appeal, employer-matching money, memorials, trusts and estates. All
of this money is still invested and growing with only the earnings
having been spent in the school’s budget. Information regarding the
Gehlen Catholic Schools Endowment Fund, Waite tuition assistance
fund and investments into the fund is available on the school's
website: ww.gehlencatholic.com by contacting: Gehlen Catholic
Schools Endowment Fund, P.O. Box 54, Le Mars, IA 51031, (712)
546-6202 or e-mail address at
info@puhlcpa.com.
|
