| The money didn’t
become available until the death last year of a family member
who was the last beneficiary of the trust Dunlap created then.
“This is one of the largest single gifts the Foundation
has ever received,” said Bob Leech, president and CEO of
the Foundation, adding that he is “very excited that Mr.
Dunlap’s generosity can live on this way, and that we can
now fulfill his wishes.”
“Thanks be to God for this marvelous expression of faith
by George Dunlap,” said John Detterick, executive director
of the General Assembly Council (GAC), which manages mission-related
funds for the denomination. “Not only will it enable more
support for church construction and improvement, but it also makes
it possible to do more to encourage greater development among
churches throughout the denomination.”
Near the end of the 19th century, Dunlap’s father, George
M. Dunlap Sr., founded a grocery chain that became the American
Stores Co., which by 1920 owned more than 1,200 markets in the
Philadelphia area. Over the years, American Stores merged with
other chains and changed its name to Acme Markets, which later
became part of the Albertson’s chain. The elder Dunlap left
a substantial estate to his four children when he died in 1924.
Decades later, George Dunlap Jr. and his wife, Phoebe, “undertook
a great campaign of giving” to the Presbyterian church,
said Chip Walker, assistant vice president of client relationship
management at the Foundation’s New Covenant Trust Company.
George Dunlap died in 1961, his wife in 1971. They had no children.
In the 1950s, the Dunlaps donated cash and American Stores stock
to establish funds benefiting the Presbyterian Board of National
Missions and the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and also
created a revolving fund from which loans were to be made to churches
“as an aid in financing new construction, alterations, repairs
and improvements.”
That fund, which over the years had grown to about $2.8 million,
now is valued at about $10 million.
Jeff Uhling, manager of endowments and gift compliance for the
GAC, said nearly 300 loans, valued at more than $8 million, have
been made from the fund since its creation in 1974, including
47 that were outstanding last year.
Most loans from the Dunlap account have ranged from $10,000
to $20,000, according to Uhling, but some have been “considerably
larger.”
The fund is characterized as “revolving” because
it is replenished as the loans are repaid. It is especially useful
to smaller churches that might otherwise find it difficult to
finance improvements.
The Presbyterian Foundation has more than $150 million in its
entire church loan program, but the Dunlap account is “one
of the few funds we have that allows for repairs,” Uhling
said. “The point of the program is to provide loans at low
interest rates to churches that couldn’t necessarily go
out into the marketplace and get a loan,” he said.
Jay Hudson, president of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Investment
and Loan Program (PILP), which manages the lending process under
contract with the GAC, said the new money will strengthen a fund
that is especially helpful to “churches already established”
but needing small loans to finance additions, alterations and
repairs.
Hudson said he doesn’t know anything much about Dunlap,
but was “familiar with the old Acme Grocery chain in Philly
when I was growing up” in the area.
The Rev. Karen Nelson, associate pastor of Marple Presbyterian
Church, said she was unable to find any members who had more than
a fleeting memory of the Dunlaps, although George Dunlap was known
to be “a big financial supporter of projects” at the
church and “had 100 percent attendance at Sunday services.”
Mrs. Dunlap was active in church “circles and women’s
groups,” Nelson said.
The year before he died, George Dunlap Jr. made another gift
of American Stores stock that enabled Marple Presbyterian to establish
an annual scholarship for preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary
in Princeton, NJ.
“While we don’t really know much about Mr. Dunlap,
we do know he was a good and generous man who obviously believed
in the power of the church to change lives for the better,”
said Leech. “A whole new set of possibilities opens up with
this gift, and church members all over America will see the results.”
The Foundation has about $1.5 billion in assets under management
and receives $30 million to $60 million each year in gifts. |
