LEGACY STORY

Pete and Audrey Bursch

Foundation:

Alexandria Area Community Foundation

Fund:

M.W. (Pete) and Audrey Bursch Charitable Fund

Fund Established:

August 27, 2013

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Pete and Audrey Bursch were active and generous residents of the Alexandria community. Their passion was for the theater and arts.

Among many other efforts, they worked in support of the Central Lakes Concert Association, the Alexandria Area Arts Association and the high school music program. Pete helped found Theatre L’Homme Dieu and served on its board for 30 years. They died at the turn of the century, only a year apart.

As the four Bursch children worked with their parents’ estate, Fred suggested they use some of the assets to accomplish something their parents had wanted to do—continue to give back to the community after they were gone. He recommended establishing a donor advised fund.

The siblings, Fred, Charles, Barbara and Mary, used a portion of the proceeds from property they sold to set up the fund that’s designed to benefit the Alexandria area, with a focus on theater and the arts.

In the years since it was established, the fund has benefited many Alexandria organizations in the names of Pete and Audrey and has provided a very generous gift to Theatre L’Homme Dieu when it became independent of St. Cloud State University.

It’s a fund that will be passed to the next generation as well. The eight grandchildren of Audrey and Pete are named as successor advisors of the fund after their parents die. Though those children live distant from Alexandria, Fred believes the M.W. (Pete) and Audrey Bursch Charitable Fund will provide a way for those children to connect back to the roots of their family through making charitable gifts to local efforts. That makes three generations of the Bursch family involved in philanthropy in Alexandria.