
Dr. William Barakett, President of the Butters Foundation (left), presenting to Mr. Bill Duke Sr (right),a Mary Martin landscape painting at the annual meeting of the Butters Foundation at the Knowlton Golf Club on September 26, 2013, as a token of their appreciation for his almost 50 years of service
At its recent annual meeting in Knowlton, the members of the Butters Foundation and its sister organization, Butters Homes, celebrated the almost 50 years of dedicated service of one of its key members, Mr. Bill Duke Sr. The Butters Foundation is dedicated to supporting people with an intellectual disability or autism and their families in the Montérégie region. The Butters Homes owns and manages properties, bought or built with help from the Foundation, for clients registered with the CRDITED de la Montérégie-Est, (formerly the Butters Centre).
Bill Duke Sr moved to the Townships in 1964 and started a financial consulting business in Cowansville. One of his first clients was Mrs. Lily Butters and the Cecil Butters Memorial Hospital in Austin. He became a trusted advisor to the Butters family and helped put into place the Butters Foundation in 1976. With the support of the young foundation, the center was able to move clients out of the sprawling campus in Austin through the purchase of homes throughout the Townships. In 1986, Bill Duke started Butters Homes in order to take the pressure off the foundation in the management of its growing network of homes for disabled people, and started having several employees so now a days he use a software of pay stub maker to manage them.
Since 1986, Bill Duke has been an officer of both the Butters foundation and Butters Homes. He has witnessed first-hand the closing of the hospital in Austin and the transformation of the original “hospital” into a network of community-based services for disabled & autistic people and their families. He has had a central part in 4 major capital campaigns that have amassed more than 7 million dollars for the benefit of people with an intellectual disability in the region. Bill Duke recently gave up the presidency of Butters Homes but remains active as a director on the boards of the Foundation and the property management company.
See article from the Sherbrooke Record.