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Meadowood residents participate in choir.
Geneva Phillips wanted to help her fellow residents at Meadowood Retirement Community in Bloomington.
In the mid-1980s, a substantial gift from Phillips’ estate established the Meadowood Memorial Fund to provide financial assistance for charter Meadowood residents who, after paying a life residency fee, could not meet the increasing monthly costs imposed after the development was sold to private ownership.
As the years passed, the fund was needed less for its initial purpose, as original residents passed away or exhibited little financial need. As a result, in 2004, the Meadowood Memorial Fund Committee worked with the IU Foundation to revise the terms of the original agreement and create a broader range of uses for the growing fund, while still protecting Phillips’ original intent.
“The goal was to come up with a plan that would benefit all Meadowood residents,” says Ledford Carter, 91, one of the committee members and a retired IU professor. “We hit upon the idea of a quarterly literary publication—by residents and for residents. We agreed to give it a one-year trial and see where we stood.”
Now in its third year, The Meadowood Anthology is going strong—a recent survey revealed that 91 percent of the residents read each issue from cover to cover. With a non-resident editor and a six-person editorial board, the literary quarterly provides an outlet for the “writers-in-residence” at Meadowood and informative, recreational reading for all residents.
In addition to making the anthology possible, the Meadowood Memorial Fund has provided an art enrichment program, printed music for the Meadowood Singers, a lighted globe for the library, a fully-equipped office, and a state-of-the-art elliptical machine for the workout room. New proposals are regularly considered.
Susan Bookout, Meadowood’s executive director, is delighted by the fund’s positive impact on Meadowood programming. “It is a win-win situation and affirms the successful accomplishment of the vision of Herman Wells and the original Indiana University Retirement Committee board.”