The Elva K. Williams Memorial Fund is one of three separate funds established at The Pittsburgh Foundation by the late attorney Ben Paul Brasley. This fund was established as a memorial for Elva K. Williams, a former secretary of Pine Township School District, to provide scholarship awards to students of Pine Junior High School.
In 1981, Brasley died at the age of 96. He was described as an “unpretentious and unassuming” person whose extensive generosity was matched by a rare degree of humility. Brasley was a generous, but anonymous contributor to hundreds of people and charitable projects who was believed to have donated more than 90 percent of his income to charity for many years. Although no one will ever know exactly how much he gave during his lifetime, it is known that he supported many groups and causes ranging from the Unitarian Church of North Hills to a kibbutz in northern Israel.