Carey D. Miller trust fund benefits 11 Hawaii organizations

Organizations received a total of $670,000 from UH professor and pioneer food scientist

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Gladys Sato, (808) 988-4804
Carey D. Miller Scholarship Fund Trustee
Arlene Abiang, (808) 956-5637
External Affairs & University Relations
Posted: Nov 22, 2005


HONOLULU — The legacy of UH professor, pioneer food scientist and community philanthropist Carey D. Miller will live on through her contributions throughout her life and long after her passing due to her generous monetary contribution of more than $670,000 to 11 Hawaiʻi organizations. These organizations had a special tie or interest to Miller, and became beneficiaries of her trust, each receiving $60,000 at an event held in her honor earlier this month.

The 11 organizations included:
· Bishop Museum
· Friends of Honolulu Botanical Gardens
· Hawaiʻi Dietetic Association
· Hawaiʻi Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
· Hawaiian Historical Society
· Hawaiʻi Council of Churches
· KCAA Preschools of Hawaiʻi
· Outdoor Circle
· Pacific Orchid Society
· UH Foundation — Carey D. Miller Award Fund
· YWCA-Honolulu

"Carey D. Miller had a special respect for Hawaiʻi‘s people, culture, environment, and because of her generous contribution, the 11 beneficiaries of her trust will be able to perpetuate and carry on her service to our state," said Gladys Sato, a trustee of the Carey D. Miller Scholarship Fund.

Miller‘s trust document stated that her trust will terminate 20 years after her death and the property then comprising the estate, together with any accrued and undistributed income, will be vested and distributed free and clear of any trusts in equal shares to these 11 organizations.

Since Miller did not have any heirs upon her death in 1985, her estate was left to providing scholarships for students majoring in nutrition. The dividends of her trust were paid to the Hawaiʻi Dietetic Association for scholarships to deserving students studying in Hawaiʻi or in the continental U.S. in the field of Human Nutrition for twenty years, from 1985 to 2005. During this time, 300 awards were made to 161 students, totaling to $335,000 in scholarships.

The trustees who oversaw the distribution of the scholarships during the two decades have indicated that the Hawaiʻi Dietetic Association's portion of the funds will be endowed to continue Miller's scholarship tradition.

During her 36 years with the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at UH Mānoa, Carey D. Miller established the university‘s research, instruction and outreach programs in food science, and nutrition. She came to Hawaiʻi in 1922 and headed the UH home economics department, which at the time had only one student major. Under her guidance, enrollment in the department increased encompassing 160 majors when she stepped down as chair 23 years later. Today, the instructional programs that were once housed in the Home Economics Department are among the college‘s most popular educating more than 400 majors as of Fall 2005.

Miller also conducted groundbreaking work in assessing local foods as no information was available on the diets of Hawaiʻi‘s Asians and Pacific Islanders. Her research revealed that Hawaiʻi -grown crops could provide the same essential nutrients as imports. Among them include the nutritional content of fresh local fruits like papayas, guavas and mangoes, all of which found to have a high value of vitamin C.