STUDENT SUPPORT

Bennett Estate Creates College of Medicine Loan Fund

A $6.8 million estate gift from Burlington native Elinor B. Tourville Bennett will establish a perpetual no-fee, no-interest loan fund for Vermont students at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.

The Elinor Tourville Bennett Charitable Trust will provide annual income to the College of Medicine that will be made available as loans to students who are Vermont residents, with a minimum payback period of 10 years after the student has completed residency training.

"This loan fund — made possible by the extraordinary generosity and foresight of Elinor Bennett — will impact the education of Vermont medical students in perpetuity," said UVM College of Medicine Interim Dean John P. Fogarty, M.D. "This will allow students to more easily manage the burden of educational debt during their earlier years as physicians."

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the reported average 2006 graduate indebtedness at UVM's College of Medicine was $134,306.

The new loan fund joins the Freeman Medical Scholars Program as a significant form of financial assistance to medical students at UVM. The Freeman program, established by the Freeman Foundation, offers $10,000 annual scholarships to UVM medical students who express a commitment to return to practice in Vermont after completing medical school and residency training.

Mrs. Bennett was born in Burlington on May 6, 1920, the daughter of the owners of a Cadillac dealership on North Avenue. A 1938 graduate of Burlington High School, she worked for years as a dental assistant in the Burlington area. Her home on the lake on Appletree Point was built by her father in 1930. In 1960, she married Wilfred Tourville, who passed away in 1969. Then in 1976, she married Thomas Bennett, who died in 1979.

Mrs. Bennett was a Florida resident beginning in the 1970s, but she retained a strong affinity for Burlington and considered Vermont her home. She always returned to her Appletree Point property during the summer.

Formerly a member of the Burlington Theater Club and active in her church and community, Mrs. Bennett endured a series of health issues during the 20 years before her death on June 25, 2006. The positive experiences and relationships she developed with the physicians who cared for her during that time inspired her to bequeath most of her estate to the College of Medicine.

Mrs. Bennett's closest friend, South Burlington resident and Overhead Door Company owner Rita Johnson, first met the former Elinor Bergeron through her sister when they were children. But it was not until Mrs. Bennett suffered a stroke in 1994 that they became close.

"I admired her inner strength," said Johnson. "She had a lot of faith in her doctors and was very pleased that her gift would help people who wanted to be doctors."