Celebrating generosity: Savor the beauty
Couple leave $3 million estate gift to the community
How Carol and John left their legacy
They decided they wanted to be generous and asked a friend how they share their philanthropy.
John called the Community Foundation and spoke with our team about how they could plan their estate to support specific nonprofits they loved and their community.
We walked the couple through the process alongside their attorney, Melissa Hancock, and committed to carrying out their legacy the way they wanted to.
Carol and John’s estate established an endowment fund after they both passed away.
Now, Carol and John’s legacy continues each year through grants to the nonprofits they designated.
If there was a story to be told, John Willard was there.
For decades, as local residents sipped their early morning coffee and flipped through the daily news in the Quad-City Times, there he was—with his welcoming smile and warm eyes. He always had something to say.
A few years ago, John spent the morning with us in our office lobby on Middle Road in Bettendorf. He told us that he had just come from his regular walk through VanderVeer Park. “We always savor the beauty,” he told us.
Savoring the beauty was something John and his wife Carol did throughout their life. They also spread goodness throughout the Quad Cities—in the stories John told while he and Carol were alive, and now, through a generous estate gift of about $3 million placed in the trusting hands of the Quad Cities Community Foundation.
“John and Carol had a heart for their community,” Sherry Ristau, president and CEO, recalls. “They weren’t sure where or how to leave their legacy, but knew they wanted to be generous.”
And generous they were, leaving the majority of their estate to the Community Foundation. Their estate gift allows John and Carol to keep giving to community assets like VanderVeer Park and the Davenport Public Library, nonprofits like the Humane Society of Scott County and Genesis Health Services Foundation, their alma maters Aurora University and the University of Illinois, their church Grace Lutheran Church, and community funds like the Quad Cities Community Impact Fund, among others.
“We are fortunate to have you as a resource so we can always support charitable causes important to us,” John said to us. “It is comforting to know that we have the expertise available that ensures our estate will be carefully managed. We have no children. We have few heirs. We can’t think of a better legacy than one that is possible through the Community Foundation.”