On June 17th, community recipients of the 2026 grants from the Stark Family Fund, held at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area, gathered at theROC Youth Services in Picton to celebrate the amazing legacy of the Stark sisters, who established the fund posthumously through a bequest in 2002.
The fund is stewarded by long-term family friends of the Starks, Tim and Linda Beatty, along with their family.
Linda Beatty shared a few moving words, which we share with you here.
My husband, Tim, grew up next door to the Stark sisters, and the girls were like grandmothers to him. We have been blessed to have been in their lives and they in ours. Our children, Kyle and Ryan, and their spouses, Caitlin and Jill, and now our grandchildren, Peyton, Tally and Tanner, are honouring their wishes for this legacy to live on and to be remembered and to be shared throughout the community which they loved so much.
I will touch on a brief history for those who don't know.
The lives of the five Stark sisters of Bloomfield spanned the twentieth century, but their family's legacy lives on through the twenty-first. Lots of people have been the recipients of their generosity through the Stark Family Fund, established in 2003 to support worthy causes in Prince Edward County.
Their story begins well over a century ago. In 1908, Sanford Stark, the girls' father, purchased a home and blacksmith shop on Stanley Street in the village of Bloomfield. Sanford and his wife, Gertrude, had five daughters, Leata, Keitha, Sylvia, Ival and Ruth.
Leata was an accomplished pianist. Keitha and Ival became schoolteachers, who taught generations of County children. They were champions of the underdog and devoted to tutoring pupils who had difficulty learning.
Sylvia was the office manager at Baxter Canning, located in Bloomfield, and Ruth became the homemaker for them all.
Life in the village revolved around church, work, friends and family.
Between 1978 and 1985, Leata and Harold Cleave, Keitha and Jim Gough, and Sylvia Stark had all passed away, leaving the youngest sisters as custodians of their estates. It was a surprise at the amount of funds accumulated from everyone's hard work. They respected the fact that their sisters and their husbands and themselves had worked hard to achieve.
So, before Ival died in 1999, the sisters had agreed that they wanted their inheritance to help the community they loved. Upon Ruth's death in 2001, the bulk of the family's estate – over $1.3 million – was used to establish the Stark Family Fund.
They led ordinary, hardworking lives and they loved their community. Knowing that they are supporting projects that provide care for the elderly, benefit children and young people, and assist those less fortunate would make them very proud.
Thank you to all the volunteers and leaders here today, and may your grant touch and help many going forward.
