News

Doris Eklund, community activist and volunteer, dies

Doris Eklund

By Bill Moss, Published: November 19, 2015

Doris Anderson Eklund, a businesswoman, volunteer and longtime community activist, died on Wednesday at the life care center at Lake Pointe Landing after a period of declining health.

The proprietor of the Downing Street dress shop on Main Street, Eklund found time to volunteer for a variety of health care and social charities, including the Pardee Hospital Foundation, Council on Aging and others.
Doris Eklund and her husband, the Robert Dean “Bob” Eklund, were dynamic and enthusiastic leaders in community service from the time they arrived in Henderson County in the 1970s with Olin Corp. The couple were married for 60 years until his death in 2011.
Both cancer survivors, the Eklunds were featured in Pardee’s “My Community, My Choice” campaign to share their story of overcoming cancer. As the Pardee Foundation’s Women Helping Women chair, Eklund helped implement the program that funds breast cancer screenings and cancer treatment for women.
“Whatever cause they choose to support with their time is also worthy of their financial commitment,” the Community Foundation of Henderson County said when it gave its Richard C. and Vina L. Sauer Award to the couple in 2009. “In addition to their leadership in fundraising, they have been major donors to the organizations which are lucky to have their involvement.”
McCray Benson, the president of the Community Foundation, recalled that Eklund was one of the first people he met in the philanthropic community when he arrived 10 years ago.
“She headed up the first fundraiser I was involved in and she was always concerned with how hot it was,” he said. The event was on a hot July day at the Woodfield Inn Flat Rock. “She checked with me for years afterward and would always say, ‘I’m sorry it was so hot.’”
Eklund did not just sit on boards and write checks.
“She could be a very smart businesswoman and still stayed involved with so many things,” he said. “The Council on Aging was one of her boards. She was always willing to take a responsible role. I remember a Meals on Wheels event we did to go out on deliveries. She was there coordinating people and who went where.”
Besides the Pardee Foundation and Council on Aging, Eklund’s service and campaigns over three decades included sponsorship chair of the Apple Festival for eight years, the Historic Courthouse fundraising camnpaign, the Pardee Surgical Suite Campaign, Partnership for Health fundraising chair and the Pardee emergency department campaign, raising $4.8 million.
Funeral arrangements had not been set early Thursday. Thos. Shepherd & Son Funeral Directors is handling arrangements.