Community Foundation for Delta County Board Chair Charlie Becker presents Gladstone City Manager Eric Buckman with a $152,994.55 check for the city's annual distribution from the Dr. Mary L. Cretens Endowment Fund. (Submitted photo)

GLADSTONE — The Community Foundation for Delta County Board recently presented the City of Gladstone with a $152,994.55 check for its annual distribution from the Dr. Mary L. Cretens Endowment Fund.

“Dr. Cretens was a lifelong resident of the City of Gladstone, and she loved her community,” Board Chair Charlie Becker said. “She exemplified the Community Foundation’s motto ‘For good. For ever.’ such that, upon her passing, she had her trust and philanthropic giving turned over to the Community Foundation for Delta County, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Upper Peninsula, to make her gifts to a number of organizations that she cared deeply about.”

Cretens was a long-term member of the foundation board and served on the executive committee as well. “She knew the Community Foundation for Delta County would be in existence well into the future and therefore the perfect vehicle to undertake her gifting after her passing,” Becker said.

Gladstone City Manager Eric Buckman thanked Cretens and the CFDC on behalf of the citizens of Gladstone.

“I am well aware of the tremendous amount of money we have received from Dr. Mary Cretens Endowment fund held in the Community Foundation for Delta County and the funds we will continue to receive in the future,” Buckman said. “The impact Dr. Cretens generosity has made throughout the years, and will continue to make well into the future, to the City of Gladstone and its citizens is astronomical. Our gratitude to her thoughtful philanthropy and the foundations commitment and respect for Dr. Cretens is astounding.”

Becker added, “Dr. Cretens’ insight for the future of community, people and animals is amazing. This year, the community foundation has distributed annual gifts totaling over $316,000 from the Dr. Mary L. Cretens Endowment Fund. Her fund has had and will continue to have an enormous impact on so many.”

To find out how to start a fund that gives to places now and into the future, contact the community foundation by calling 906-786-6654 to set up an appointment to come to the office at 2420 First Ave. S. in Escanaba. Mandatory IRA contributions are welcomed and are a great vehicle to donate or start a fund.

The foundation is a 501 (c)(3) organization certified by National Standards.