The Bob and Lea Dirks Coast to Coast Hardware Store Endowment Fund was established to provide ongoing funding for non-profit organizations that were dear to the couple. The Dirks moved to Chippewa Falls in 1950, after operating a business in Iowa, to be closer to their friends and family in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They owned the Coast to Coast Hardware Store, along with their daughter and son-in-law Donna and Bill Maier.

Anyone who ever shopped at the Coast to Coast, located on Spring Street, will not forget the friendly greetings and the service that was so cheerfully, delivered daily by Lea and Bob. They may even remember Lea frying donuts in the front window for a downtown promotion.

"I just want people to always know that there once was a store called Coast to Coast," said Lea upon establishing the endowment with assets from some certificates of deposit that according to Lea, "Weren't doing much good any more anyway."

Gifts to the fund will generate grants to the non-profit organizations in the area that meant the most to Bob and Lea. They include the Lake Wissota Improvement & Protection Association, the Chippewa Falls Main Street Fund for the city's downtown beautification project, the Heyde Center's Fund and the Irvine Park Zoo.