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BY CARRIE MADREN
UMCONNECTION CORRESPONDENT

Vivian Otto had forgotten all about the $10,000 endowment fund to help small churches that she donated over 20 years ago. Somehow, during the last two decades, her fund slipped off of the Conference's and the Mid-Atlantic United Methodist Foundation's radar as it accrued interest untouched.

In January, Otto, 85, received a surprising phone call: her $10,000 had grown to more than $40,000, and the Foundation had rediscovered the untapped funds. Otto, who lives at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, was elated to remember the fund and know the account will be put to its intended use. "This was quite a surprise," she said.

Otto, a member of Chevy Chase UMC for more than 50 years, served as director of membership and later director of Christian education of the old Washington West District for more than 15 years. In 1971, she became District program director, where she served more than 70 churches for a decade. In this position, she held teacher training events and trainings for local church councils to plan programs.

Still, it was the smaller churches of the old Washington West District that captured her heart. "I got around to all 70 churches and went to their charge conferences, so I learned of their needs, and I felt that they needed money more than the large membership churches," Otto said.

"One church didn't even have money for a Sunday school curriculum," she recalled. "It's meaningful for a child to have a Sunday school paper that they can take home to show their parents what they learned." She saw churches struggle to send children and youth to camps, make facility repairs, buy music for children's choirs and pay for Sunday school craft materials. Otto once helped teachers build a clay model of New Testament lands, so she could show children where Palestine and Jerusalem were.

Back in the early 1990s, a few small churches did receive help with buying music and renovating the church bathroom through the endowment funds. The fund will now be available again to help churches whose worship and Sunday school combined attendance is less than 250. Money can go towards any small church needs, from blackboards for Sunday school to repairs in the church building.

The Eugene Otto Memorial Fund is managed by the Mid-Atlantic United Methodist Foundation and the decision about which churches will receive the funds will be determined on the District Superintendent level, according to Frank Robert of the Foundation. Otto named the fund for her late husband, who passed away in 1979 and had been an active member of the United Methodist Church, serving on the Board of Laity and in the District stewardship committee. "This particular endowment fund is designed to live 'forever,' spinning off funds for their churches' use," wrote Robert, who notes that anyone can contribute to the fund to help it grow and help even more churches.

Otto's endowment is one of many made by United Methodists in the Baltimore-Washington Conference every year – and an example of how one gift can grow.