WESTBROOK – During her 94 years, Eleanor Conant Saunders was a proud resident of Westbrook who, after her death in 2014, left $110,000 to the library, public safety and public works departments.

The city council officially accepted that money in May 2016 and an additional $10,000 four months later. Now two years after initial acceptance, city departments are in line for another windfall. On Monday, the city council approved at first reading, more than $131,800 in additional funding from Saunders’ trust. The extra funds were unexpected but gladly accepted.

“This brings the total amount (from the Conant Saunders family) in excess of a quarter of a million dollars to the city of Westbrook,” City Administrator Jerre Bryant said at the March 26 council meeting. “I think that is significant.”

The donation, which would need to be formally accepted at a second reading, would be split between Walker Memorial Library ($26,367),  Westbrook Police Department ($26,367), Westbrook Fire Department ($26,367) and Westbrook Public Services ($52,733). 

How the library, police and fire departments use the money is not specified through the trust, but Saunders requested the money to public services be used to maintain the Whitney Rose Garden, located at the intersection of Main Street, William Clarke Drive and New Gorham Road and the Conant Burial Grounds, the family burial ground located on Conant Street that she donated to the city just prior to her death.

Bryant said previous funding from the Saunders trust has been used to upgrade the public safety department’s fitness center and for the library to match a community development block grant to restore the building’s stain glass windows and install storm windows. Funding has also been used to support the police department’s D.A.R.E (Drug Awareness and Resistance Education) program. Bryant said donations like this one are typically used to supplement department programs and services, but not supplant funding found in their operating budgets.

How the city departments used this latest wave of funding, Bryant said, will come before city councilors for their review and approval.

Saunders, a direct descendent of Samuel and Joseph Conant, the first settlers of Saccarappa, now Westbrook, helped to found the Westbrook Historical Society, who inherited close to 200 scrapbooks of Westbrook history that Saunders compiled over the years. Saunders, who went by Ellie, also left land to the Portland Trail system to develop a trail from near her family homestead on Conant Street to the Presumpscot River. 

“Thank you to Ellie for everything she did for the city,” Councilor Lynda Adams said. “It is nice she continues to give back even though she is not physically here anymore.”

Michael Kelley can be reached at 781-3661 x 125 or [email protected]