November 1, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Several Atlanta non-profit organizations are the beneficiaries of $140-million left by an heiress to a Coca-Cola fortune.
Lee Edwards Candler, who died in February at the age of 84, was the widow of Charles Howard Candler, Jr., a director of Coca-Cola and a real-estate executive who died in 1988. Mr. Candler’s grandfather, Asa, founded the Coca-Cola Company in 1891.
The Georgia Institute of Technology received the largest gift: $50.5-million for athletics.
Other beneficiaries include the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Atlanta, which received $16.87-million; Atlanta Union Mission, the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation, the High Museum of Art, and the Salvation Army’s divisional headquarters in Atlanta, which each received $11.25-million; and the Howard School, which received $5.65-million.
“Perfectly marvelous,” was how Howard’s director of development, Pam Helms, described the unrestricted gift, which more than doubles the endowment of the school, which teaches 300 children with language-learning disabilities.
And LaGrange College, which reported a $22.5-million gift from an anonymous donor in August (The Chronicle, August 26) has identified the Candlers as its benefactors.
Except for a trust that accounts for about half of Georgia Tech’s gift, almost all of the windfall comprises shares in the Coca-Cola Company.
Mr. and Mrs. Candler had set up their estates so that each charity would receive a percentage of shares in Coca-Cola, ranging from 5 to 20 per cent of the couple’s portfolio. Not all disbursements have been made yet, so the value of the gifts could increase — depending on how Coca-Cola’s stock performs.
The Candler gifts are the second major bequest of Coca-Cola money to philanthropies in and around Atlanta this year.
Four charities — Emory University, the Methodist Home for Children and Youth, the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Young Harris College — were the beneficiaries of gifts totaling $192-million in Coca-Cola stock from Margaret Adger Pitts (The Chronicle, March 25). Her father, William, was an early investor in the company.
