A Victoria-based businessman who passed away in 2017 has donated $1 million from his estate to Camosun College.
The donation, made by the late Knud Boelt, will benefit students who are training to become childcare educators, childcare providers, trades people and more.
A portion of the $1-million donation will go towards establishing the Pearl and Knud Boelt Early Learning and Care Hub, which will offer a new training space for childcare educators and providers in memory of Pearl Boelt, Knud's wife who died in 2009.
“Knud would be pleased to know that Camosun students will benefit from his donation,” said Laurence Johnson, Boelt's estate executor.
“He loved to share his gifts with friends and family, and if his donation can help others share their own gifts, he’d be so happy.”
Boelt was born in Denmark in 1930 and immigrated to Victoria in the 1960s. He owned the Little Cheese & Wein Shop in Hillside Mall until his retirement in 1988, and was a cofounder of Big Brothers Big Sister of Victoria.
A friend of Boelt's, Walter Donald, who met the local businessman through their mutual involvement with Big Brothers in the late 1960s, remembers him as someone who always supported the potential of young adults.
Donald told Camosun College that Big Brothers' former slogan, "No man ever stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child," aptly describes Boelt.
"It could easily be applied to Knud, for his support and generosity," said Donald. " He was always willing to extend his hand to any young person who needed it."
