Shaffer estate benefiting 6
Six nonprofit organizations have gotten gifts totaling more than $2 million from the E. Bertrum and Esther Shaffer estate.
The Shaffers donated $334,710 each to the Butler County Community College Education Foundation, the Butler School District Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation, the Butler Area Public Library, and the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Butler.
They also donated the same amount to each of their undergraduate school alma maters, Edinboro University, from which Bertrum graduated, and Grove City College, from which Esther graduated. Both earned education degrees.
BC3 announced Nov. 15 that the gift to the college foundation would endow the E. Bertrum and Esther Shaffer Scholarship established in 1977. Bertrum had been an academic dean at the college.
BC3 will name a walking trail after the couple.
Likewise, in the Butler School District, the Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation will establish the E. Bertrum and Esther Shaffer Scholarship Fund.
Two awards which might be more than $5,000 each, will be made annually to two students attending post-secondary schools, said Cathy Rodgers, district director of business services. The first year for which the awards will be given has yet to be decided, Rodgers said.
Both Shaffers were teachers and principals in the district.
The Shaffers’ gift to the library will be used to enhance its young adult room, which will be named after them, said Greg Sloan, library director of development.
Peter Bess, youth services librarian, is developing a “wish list” of items for the space, Sloan said. The list includes books, DVDs, seating and study rooms for teenagers, he said.
Sloan has talked with the interior design department at La Roche College in Pittsburgh to partner with the library on the space.
“It’s a win-win,” Sloan said. “La Roche students get a real-world opportunity and we’re getting very good design ideas.”
The library partnered with La Roche students on the design of its $50,000 music center, which will open Dec. 9. Funding for it was donated by the late Bill Lehnerd.
The Shaffers attended Covenant Presbyterian Church, where Bertrum was a deacon and an elder for many years. Their gift was used to re-light the cross on the church’s steeple, which is 178 feet from the ground.
The steeple’s cross originally was lit in the 1920s, but went out over the past 20 years. The church bought a stainless steel replacement cross and used the Shaffers’ gift for a halogen lighting system to shine on the cross.
Esther Shaffer died Feb. 5, 2003, and E. Bertrum Shaffer died July 30, 2010. Esther was 85 years old at the time of her death, and Bertrum was 95 when he died.
