Philanthropy
In 1961, Bentley established the Alvin M. Bentley Foundation to support educational, scientific, and charitable projects. Through the foundation, Bentley continues to foster academic excellence in the state of Michigan.
In 1983, the foundation established the Bentley Scholarships at the University of Michigan for Michigan residents who have demonstrated academic excellence and promise. The foundation also sponsors Operation Bentley, "a week-long intensive academic program held at Albion College for high school juniors who have been selected to participate in a rigorous and rewarding study of local, state, and national politics."
In 1967, he contributed money to the University of Michigan to establish an endowed professorship in the Department of History in memory of his parents.
In the mid-1960s, Bentley served as chairman of the Michigan Freedom from Hunger Council, a humanitarian organization set up to gather, interpret, and disseminate information about hunger problems in the world, especially in the Western Hemisphere. Bentley also chaired the Michigan branch of the Partners of the Alliance, an organization that had begun nationally in 1964, to act as a channel through which civic clubs, unions, business and professional groups, schools, and individuals could work directly with groups, villages, or areas in Latin America to improve the way of life in that particular area. The objective was not charity, but the promotion of self-help programs. The State of Michigan took British Honduras (Belize) as its partner.
In 1971, his widow, Arvella D. Bentley, gave a generous donation to the University of Michigan's "Michigan Historical Collections", enabling it to construct a new building which was subsequently renamed the Bentley Historical Library.
Read more about this topic: Alvin Morell Bentley
Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“... the hey-day of a woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)