The Parkersburg Area Community Foundation has received a $15 million bequest from a late Parkersburg businesswoman.
Calling her a “remarkable woman,” the major gift from the late Mary M. “Mickey” Welch, who died in August 2019, is the largest in the history of the 57-year-old foundation, said Judy Sjostedt Ritchie, executive director of the foundation.
“It’s been said ‘Some people leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same,'” Sjostedt Ritchie said. “Mary M. “Mickey” Welch left footprints on the hearts of countless people throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley and elsewhere.”
Welch was a successful owner of numerous businesses and was steadfast in her support of her community with “a boundless concern for others’ well-being,” Sjostedt Ritchie said.