HENRDRICKS COUNTY — The Hendricks County Community Foundation has received its largest donation in its 30-year history.
The $1.74 million gift establishes the Huron Family Fund.
The Huron Family Fund was started by a bequest made to the foundation by the late Joyce Huron Hutchins Trent, a life-long resident of Avon, and set up by a charitable trust in 1997 to benefit the foundation.
Trent passed away in 2024 at the age of 98.
The funds will be used to provide a $40,000 for one Hendricks County Graduate each year. Preference will be given to students with hearing loss or deafness because Trent's parents were both deaf.
The funds will also support needs of the community and some of Trent's other passions, including supporting a local cemetery where some of her family is buried.
"She was a very generous and giving person, and her life story is quite remarkable. She started with a paper route and ended up as a vice president and loan officer at a number of banks," William Rhodehamel, President and CEO of HCCF, said. "She had a 45-year career in banking, and never had children of her own, but married into a family where she had stepchildren, and they all speak so highly of her. It's remarkable to read about her legacy."
The foundation was first established as the Greater Plainfield Community Foundation in 1993. It became a county-wide organization in 1996 after receiving a Lilly Endowment grant.
Now in its 30th year, the foundation operates on the mission to make Hendricks County a better place to live through grant awards and community building.
"How we do that is different from most nonprofits because we don't run direct programs or projects. What we do is we make grants to other nonprofits that are doing the important work to make Hendrix County a better place," Rhodehamel said, "So we work with generous people to build permanent endowment funds that will be forever making grants to make Hendricks County a better place, just like we worked with Joyce to realize her goals through this wonderful bequest."
The new fund will go live later this year.
The first scholarship will be awarded to a senior in the class of 2027.
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