LDS Foundation Aids Krishna Temple
Salt Lake Tribune 5Jun99 C8
By Peggy Fletcher Stack: Salt Lake Tribune

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LDS foundation donates $25,000 to Krishna temple
Deseret News 5Jun99 C8
By Carrie A. Moore: Deseret News religion editor

SPANISH FORK, UTAH -- The LDS Church's Foundation has made a $25,000 donation to the Hare Krishnas. The donation will help the Krishnas construct a Temple near Spanish Fork, Utah. The Hare Krishnas arrived in Utah 15 years ago, and have been struggling for funds recently to build a temple. With the encouragement and assistance of President Stanley W. Green of the Salem West Stake, Vaibhavi Devi, the temple's designer, filed an application with the foundation in April asking for funds to go towards the construction. They foundation notified them on May 28th that their application had been granted.

The Krishna's plan a 15,000 square-foot temple modeled on India's most sacred pilgramage place, the ancient Palace Temple of Kusum Sarovar located in the Mathura Vrndavan region of India. The building will eventually include 200 columns and archways, elaborate carvings, sculptures and murals and 17 ornamented domes rising up to 60 feet in height. The building is scheduled to be completed in 2001, at an eventual cost of $1 million.

President Green says that the Krishna's have been good neighbors, "I found these [Krishnas] to be wonderful people, honest, good people. The kind any community would want to have within its boundaries." Members of the LDS Church have also contributed labor when needed.

The funds of the Foundation are administered by Deseret Management Corp., the holding company for the LDS Church's for-profit businesses. All funds expended by the foundation come from DMC profits. This isn't the first time that Foundation funds were used for another Church. The Foundation also assisted in the rennovation of the Cathederal of the Madeline in Salt Lake City.