The endowment care fund and all payments or contributions to it are hereby expressly permitted as and for charitable and eleemosynary purposes. Endowment care is a provision for the discharge of a duty due from the persons contributing to the persons interred and to be interred in the cemetery and a provision for the benefit and protection of the public by preserving and keeping cemeteries from becoming unkept and places of reproach and desolation in the communities in which they are situated.