Dick Young and Bill Blasdale
NEW BEDFORD — The Acushnet Foundation has donated $8 million — believed to be the largest single gift to a public charity in Greater New Bedford — to the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts. With the gift, the Community Foundation’s assets more than double, from $6.2 million to $14.2 million.
The $8 million gift will establish the Acushnet Foundation Fund, which will be managed by the Community Foundation and advised by the board of the Acushnet Foundation.
The money will continue to fund activities “that involve youth, health, education, as well as supporting nonprofit organizations that work to control excessive use of drugs and alcohol, those involved with fighting violence and crime and those that help disadvantaged children and adults to develop skills for a better life,” said Acushnet Foundation trustee R. William Blasdale.
“By donating the Acushnet Foundation’s assets to the Community Foundation, we are ensuring that Greater New Bedford will be well served into the future,” said Richard B. Young, a trustee of the Acushnet Foundation. “I am very happy to celebrate a transition that I feel will be beneficial to the Community Foundation, the Acushnet Foundation and, more importantly, the Greater New Bedford community.”
The fund will also support cultural activities, promote better and fiscally sound government, and those efforts that safeguard the environment, according to Mr. Blasdale.
The Acushnet Foundation was formed in 1953 as a separate charitable arm of the Acushnet Co., the longtime local manufacturer of Titleist golf balls and golf equipment. The Acushnet Foundation has supported a number of the area’s best-known charities and nonprofit groups.
This story appeared in full on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on June 24, 2005.