Investing In The Future Through A New Endowed Fund At TRU Williams Lake

A Lake City couple is championing a newly established $1 million endowment for students wanting to go to University close to home.

The Nairn’s kick started it by pledging $100,000 during the Annual Gala at Thompson Rivers University Williams Lake Campus back in October.

Mark Nairn said TRU in Kamloops has an endowment fund and he’s always felt that it’s important to raise funds in whatever way you can to benefit students who may not be able to afford to go to University.

He said they’ve raised funds in the past through these once a year Gala’s  and they’ve all been very successful.

“I’ve always felt we need something more permanent to carry through years, for instance like COVID where we weren’t able to have a Gala, of course we used up all our reserves. We had a Gala this year that was very successful and now we’re starting to work on the endowment which hopefully will support students in perpetuity.”

Nairn said he personally thinks that a million dollars is a lofty goal.

“We raised over $33,000 towards this at the last Gala and we also have some residual funds being held by the University which will be rolled into the endowment. I believe the number is somewhere around $165,000 already without even really getting started.”

Nairn said the two most important things we (the community) can support is our children’s health and their education and I think a lot of people realize that and this gives them an opportunity to give back.

“I chaired the Bursary Committee for several years and some of the stories would tug at your heart strings. I remember one lady with a disabled son and was working three jobs to trying to make enough money to go to university. That’s just one and there are a lot of those kind of stories and I think if you read them you’d be pulling a few bucks out of your wallet and throwing into this endowment.”

Nairn noted the reason they picked $1 million dollars as a goal is that it should generate about $40,000 a year that will be used for bursaries to support students in need coming to the T-R-U Williams Lake campus.