Dick Van Dyke Saves Childhood Home

It will be turned into foundation headquarters
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 12, 2015 9:34 AM CDT
Dick Van Dyke Saves Childhood Home
This Jan. 27, 2013 file photo shows actor Dick Van Dyke at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.   (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, file)

Dick Van Dyke is taking steps to save his childhood home, which was slated for demolition in the central Illinois city of Danville. News stories about the threat to the home reached the 89-year-old actor last summer. He announced over the weekend that the home will be restored as headquarters for a new foundation to provide scholarships to accomplished young performers. Organizers of the Dick Van Dyke Foundation hope to establish a museum in the home where Van Dyke and brother Jerry lived during high school after relocating from Missouri. After learning of the house's dilapidated state, the star of Mary Poppins and television's The Dick Van Dyke Show recalled the "happy memories drifting around in there" in a tweet to his tens of thousands of followers. (More Dick van Dyke stories.)

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