Former Portage Mayor provides posthumous donation

The Community Foundation of Portage and District issued a press release last Thursday afternoon regarding a donation $500,000 to the foundation from former Portage Mayor Ian McKenzie's estate.

Executive director of the foundation, Kimberly Lavallee says this funding will go a long way to helping the community with their granting needs.

Lavallee went on to explain that this money right now is undesignated.

"It just gets put into our endowment fund, and then it'll go out through grants," notes the executive director.

Lavallee says that the community foundation has known about this money since 2015, but it wasn't officially donated until the last few weeks due to the legality of things.

Ian MacKenzie passed away on December 30th, 2014, at the age of 91, and even though it has been seven years since his passing, his legacy continues to grow in the city that he was mayor of for eight years (1998 - 2005.)