From the beginning of the Shuswap Community Foundation, John and Ingrid Monk were staunch supporters. They are listed among the Founders, those who made the initial contributions that provided the start. Now, in the form of the John and Ingrid Monk Endowment Fund, the family has contributed a further $40,000. To be disbursed at the discretion of the directors, approximately half of the earned income will be used each year to support non-profit projects in the Sicamous area and the other half to assist projects elsewhere in the Shuswap.
The fund recognizes John, who died in his garden at the age of 87, September 3, 2002, and Ingrid, his wife of 60 years, who continues to live in Salmon Arm.
John grew up on the Monk family farm in Grindrod, handling chores, pedalling bicycle 12 miles to school and still finding time to excel in a number of sports. After several years of manual work, he put himself through Normal School in Vancouver then returned, teaching at Eagle Bay for a year or twoand then for several years at Grindrod. He met and married Ingrid in 1942 before shipping overseas. He taught officers’ training in England for two years and was promoted to captain.
After the war John retrained again, studying evenings and weekends. He worked in personnel for 17 years for the City of Vancouver, then for King George Junior College, was vice dean of Langara College and finally Dean of Vancouver Vocational Institute for a further 10 years. Throughout, John retained his love of sports and was a keen boater and fisherman, both at the coast and on annual returns to the Shuswap. He was also active in community matters and served on the seven-member board responsible for founding the BCIT Burnaby Campus. John retired at the age of 55 and the Monks returned home, spending some 16 years on Mara Lake near Sicamous and another 16 in Salmon Arm. During all those years, with Ingrid’s support and backing, he was active in local government, land use tribunals, chambers of commerce, community development and other projects. He and Ingrid were among the founders of the Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society and donated scholarship funds to assist young people in both Salmon Arm and Sicamous. Their son, Douglas, and daughter-in-law, Doriane say they share the feelings of the elder Monks about the Shuswap Community Foundation. “After attending an annual meeting and seeing what is being accomplished, the good that is being done in the community, I was very impressed,” says Douglas. Like most involved, he says they are also delighted by the perpetual aspects of the Foundation and the fact capital portion will go on working, spinning out income to meet the changing needs of the future.
“Every day of his life my father tried to make a good and positive difference to the people he lived and worked with,” says Douglas. “My parents’ support and concern for others in this world was great. “This fund would be pleasing to my father and is pleasing to the rest of the family because it is the kind of philanthropy that touches the community directly, where it does the most good.”
