Community Corner
Betty Ford passes on gift to center
The Betty Ford Center will receive $400,000 in cash and $100,000 from a trust that the Fords started in 2000.
The late former first lady Betty Ford left a half-million dollar gift to the Betty Ford Center.
The gift will come in two parts of $400,000 in a cash bequest and $100,000 from a trust that Ford and her husband, President Gerald Ford, started 11 years ago, according to MyDesert.com.
“Mrs. Ford was, and always will be, the heart and soul of this place of healing,” board Chair woman Mary Pattiz said in a statement to the website. “It means so much to us that after all she had given over the past 30 years, the center was still front and center in her mind during her final days.”
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Ford’s final will was signed June 17, exactly three weeks at Eisenhower Medical Center, according to MyDesert.com.
Following her death, the family asked mourners to donate to the treatment center’s Betty Ford Legacy Scholarship Fund and three other organizations were named in her honor.
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