The Westport Weston Family YMCA and Norwalk Hospital announced this week they each received $40 million bequests from the estate of longtime former Westport resident and YMCA trustee Ruth Thomas Bedford.
Norwalk Hospital will use the bequest to enhance its patient care programs and services, according to the announcement. A team of volunteer and administrative leaders are evaluating how to specifically use the funds.
“We are thrilled to have received this wonderful gift, the latest chapter in the Bedford family”™s long legacy of generous support of Norwalk Hospital,” said Edward B. Mahony, chairman of Norwalk Hospital”™s board of directors, in a statement.
Pete Wolgast, chairman of the YMCA’s board of trustees, which oversees investments and endowments, said the organization expects to use the bequest toward capital development needs to ensure its long-term viability through wellness, youth and other community programs.
“We are determined to make the family proud of how we will use this generous bequest,” Wolgast said in a statement.
Bedford, a granddaughter of Westport YMCA founder and former Standard Oil director Edward T. Bedford, died in June at the age of 99. She spent more than 17,000 hours volunteering in Norwalk Hospital’s gift shop over a span of five decades, the hospital said.
