Barnett Endowment
Contact: Melissa Ford melissa@cfwabash.org
For Immediate Release
Date: 09/04/2020
Milton L. “Bud” and Ruth I. Barnett Youth Missions Endowment
Shortly after her mother’s passing, Joan Younce, current resident of Warsaw, was searching for a way to honor her parents, Bud and Ruth Barnett, by using funds left in their estate in a way that would have brought a smile to their faces. Immediately, Younce thought of supporting Wabash Friends Church, because her mother had been a member of the congregation her entire life and she had been deeply involved in the choir and church volunteer activities.
Bud and Ruth Barnett
To discover the current needs of the church, Younce connected with Dave Phillips, one of the pastors at Wabash Friends Church. He suggested supporting one of the endowments already administered by the Community Foundation including building maintenance and preservation, music ministry, and mission work, or creating a new endowment to support other church programs. Some of the programs in need of financial assistance were related to youth, so Phillips suggested youth ministries, which could help provide sholarships to young congregation members to attend missions trips and camps. Pleased with this idea, ounce contacted the Community Foundation to establish the Milton L. “Bud” and Ruth I. Barnett Youth Missions Endowment to enable young members from Wabash Friends Church to participate in missions trips as part of their discipleship growth.
Bud and Ruth Barnett
Bud and Ruth Barnett were lifelong residents of Wabash County. Together, they enjoyed spending the fall season in northern Minnesota and hosting Cracker Jack parties at home around Christmas. Younce recounts that her parents’ friends would arrive to the parties with popped corn and leave with delicious caramel corn. Ruth enjoyed time in the kitchen, and would bake homemade pies and cookies as well as noodles that she would send to bake sales. In her spare time, she enjoyed completing jigsaw puzzles, collecting bird figurines, and volunteering in the gift shop of the Wabash County Hospital and for various church functions. Similarly, Bud always had a project going. Younce said “My dad could and did fix or repair everything around the house.” He collected oil railroad lanterns and built birdhouses and small lamps from brass vases he would find in antique stores. As one of the founders of Wabash Paper Coating, Bud enjoyed supporting local Wabash County teachers by providing colored cardboard scrap paper from the factory to the teachers to use for their classrooms. “My parents were ‘salt of the earth’ people," described Younce. "They had gone through the Depression and had learned to live simply and frugally. They were a perfect example of how hard work and thrift can have a good result in later years." The fund, a result of Bud and Ruth’s hard work, volunteering, and love for Wabash and Wabash Friends Church, will provide many opportunities for young members of the church to attend camps and missions trips where they can grow their faith and further their Christian walk.