Nemours Foundation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nemours Foundation is a non-profit organization established in 1936 from the 1935 Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust [1]. During his lifetime, Alfred I. du Pont was a successful industrialist, prolific inventor, published musician and quiet benefactor to a multitude of the needy—in fact, he has become the most generous benefactor on behalf of children’s health and health care in modern history. When he died in 1935, he left behind an estate valued at $40 million and a last will and testament with specific instructions for the creation of a charitable foundation primarily devoted to providing health care services to children. The foundation was named for the beloved homeland of the duPont family in France—Nemours. In 1940 Nemours Foundation opened its first health care institution, The Alfred I. duPont Institute, now known as Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware. Originally a hospital for crippled children, the Institute was the primary focus of Nemours’ work for more than 40 years.
The foundation’s second major benefactor was one of the original Trustees of the duPont estate, Edward Ball (politician). Ball was Alfred duPont’s loyal associate and brother of third wife Jessie Ball duPont. Mr. Ball spent most of his life enhancing the investments of duPont and building the assets of the Trust. He was strongly criticized for obsessively reinvesting the trust’s income instead of fully respecting duPont’s will which stipulated that trust income be used to care for children and indigent elderly of Delaware. However, when Mr. Ball died in 1981, he left the greatest portion of his own estate for the care of handicapped children in Florida. The trust’s purse strings were loosened and new programs were aggressively created.
By 1981, Nemours had established the Nemours Health Clinic, a program of care for the elderly in Delaware. That same year, Nemours also made its second major commitment to children’s health care by purchasing Hope Haven Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, renaming it Nemours Children’s Hospital. Jacksonville had been a second home and business base for Alfred I. and Jessie Ball duPont, where they built a home called Epping Forest to enjoy the warmer climate and the St. John’s River.
In 1984, a long-range plan was fashioned for Nemours Foundation: a vision for children’s care in Florida and Delaware, using hospitals and physicians to provide treatment toward a “cure” for a range of pediatric scourges, involving the best skill and talent available for such conditions. Nemours’ renewed vision also called for research and teaching to create the academic environment where excellence can flourish.
Today, the Nemours Foundation, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, operates five pediatric hospitals and numerous clinics in Delaware, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania that treat 250,000 acutely and chronically ill children each year. The DuPont Trust, with assets of approximately $4 billion, assures the future of Nemours.
“It has been my firm conviction throughout life that it is the duty of everyone in the world to do what is within his power to alleviate human suffering.” —Alfred I. duPont
