The Town of Snow Hill has established a permanent endowment fund at the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore that will benefit the Snow Hill Branch of the Worcester County Library in perpetuity with a $747,318 bequest received from the estate of Beulah V. Riley.
“The Town of Snow Hill is very pleased to honor the wishes of the late Mrs. Riley and help to ensure that the county library in Snow Hill will benefit the citizens of our town forever,” said Mayor Stephen Mathews. Regular distributions will be made from the fund exclusively for the benefit of the Snow Hill library, but they are not intended to replace, or be in lieu of, expenses normally funded by the Worcester County Commissioners.
Beulah V. Riley, the benefactor who made the bequest to the town for this purpose, was a life-long resident of Snow Hill who died in 1969. She and her husband Dr. John V. Riley, a family practitioner and beloved Snow Hill physician, lived in a beautiful home located at 210 West Market Street. Dr. Riley was the President of the First National Bank of Snow Hill and preceded his wife in death, passing away in the early 1950s.
The Riley’s had one child, the late Virginia R. Crocker, who married and moved to Iowa. A special provision in Beulah Riley’s Will established a trust for her daughter’s benefit and provided that, upon Mrs. Crocker’s death, without children, all proceeds from the Beulah Riley Estate were directed to a number of nonprofit organizations in Snow Hill, Worcester County and Salisbury, with a significant portion gifted to the Town of Snow Hill for the exclusive benefit of the Snow Hill Library.
“Bequests to charity are making an ever-increasing impact on supporting needs in our region,” said Spicer Bell, Community Foundation President. “More individuals are making provisions in their wills to support causes they care about, long after their passing.
“The Community Foundation has several funds that were created by bequests that are now improving the quality of life for the citizens of our region through charitable grants to local nonprofit organizations,” Bell added.
The Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore is the leading philanthropic organization for charitable giving on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore having made over $35 million in grants to the community since 1984. The Foundation is a public charity and the largest non-governmental source of support for nonprofit and faith based community organizations in the region.