Endowment care fund: Acceptance of gifts; uses; contributions for charitable purposes; gifts not invalidated by uncertainty of beneficiaries; rule against perpetuities inapplicable.
1. A cemetery authority which has established an endowment care fund may also take and hold any property bequeathed, granted, or given to it in trust to apply the principal, or proceeds, or income to either or all of the following purposes:
(a) Improvement or embellishment of all or any part of the cemetery or any lot in it.
(b) Erection, renewal, repair or preservation of any monument, fence, building, or other structure in the cemetery.
(c) Planting or cultivation of trees, shrubs or plants in or around any part of the cemetery.
(d) Special care or ornamenting of any part of any plot, section or building in the cemetery.
(e) Any purpose or use not inconsistent with the purpose for which the cemetery was established or is maintained.
2. The sums paid in or contributed to the fund authorized by this section are hereby expressly permitted as and for a charitable and eleemosynary purpose. Such contributions are a provision for the discharge of a duty due from the persons contributing to the person or persons interred or to be interred in the cemetery, and likewise a provision for the benefit and protection of the public by preserving, beautifying, and keeping cemeteries from becoming unkept and places of reproach and desolation in the communities in which they are situated. No payment, gift, grant, bequest, or other contribution for such purpose is invalid by reason of any indefiniteness or uncertainty of the persons designated as beneficiaries in the instruments creating the fund, nor is the fund or any contribution to it invalid as violating any law against perpetuities or the suspension of the power of alienation of title to property.
Last modified: February 26, 2006