The Donor: Mary Mills-Dunea
The Gift: $25,000
The Cause: Community Foundation of Prince Edward Island
The Reason: To fund scholarships for high school students
Mary Mills-Dunea lives in Iowa, but she loves Canada, its British roots and especially the Royal Family.
“My maternal grandfather, George Mills, was from Montreal and he loved the Royal Family and he passed that on to us,” Ms. Mills-Dunea said from her home in Osage, a town near the Minnesota border. “I have visited Canada all my life and I have a house on PEI.”
She’s such an avid follower of the Royal Family that while working at a Chicago radio station in the 1980s she convinced her boss to let her cover the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in London. “Of course I had to pay my own way, but they got me the [press] credentials and I broadcast from there,” said Ms. Mills-Dunea, who is retired and also once worked in the protocol office of the Governor of Illinois. “I’m a life-long fan.”
When Ms. Mills-Dunea heard that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be visiting PEI this summer, she wanted to mark the occasion. “I was so thrilled. I thought we really have to honour them in a special way that they would appreciate,” she said.
She created the HRH Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Legacy Fund within the Community Foundation of Prince Edward Island. She contributed $25,000 which was matched by the provincial government. The fund is managed by the foundation and it will provide scholarships to high school students to help them attend one of PEI’s postsecondary institutions. The Duke and Duchess “are very interested in education and I thought this would be a very good way to honour them,” she said.
Needless to say, Ms. Mills-Dunea was among those standing in the rain to greet the Royal couple when they stopped in Dalvay by the Sea, PEI, during their Canadian tour last month. She even got to shake the Duchess’s hand.
“I think their visit was the best thing that’s happened to PEI,” she said. When it was suggested the Confederation Bridge might be a more significant event, Ms. Mills-Dunea laughed and replied: “I’ll take the Royal couple over the bridge.”
