Featured gift roundup compiled by Chronicle:
St. Thomas University
Lee and Penny Anderson donated $75 million to help build the college’s new sports arena, which will house the men’s and women’s hockey and basketball programs and serve as a venue for graduations and other events. The arena is named after the Andersons and is set to open in 2025.
Lee Anderson is the former president of APi Group, a construction engineering company headquartered in New Brighton, Minnesota. He joined the company in his 1964 year. He was an insulation contractor at the time, a division of his father’s plumbing company. He expanded the company over the decades and sold its stake in it to his publicly traded company, J2 Acquisition Limited, for his $2.9 billion in 2019.
The Andersons did not graduate from the University of St. Thomas, but Lee Anderson grew up nearby. The couple are longtime donors to the university, and in 2007 she donated $60 million to build a student center and other facilities.
University of Utah
John and Marcia Price, through the John and Marcia Price Family Foundation, donated $35 million to support many programs within the engineering college and the construction of a new computing and engineering building. Universities are named after February prices.
The funds will be used to provide scholarships to students, pay for labs and equipment, and support educational and other programs. The grant will also support John and Marsha’s new Price Computing and Engineering Building. The gift is in addition to her $15 million that the couple donated to her college in 2021.
John Price is an American diplomat and former US Ambassador to Mauritius, Comoros and Seychelles. He received his Bachelor of Science in Geotechnical Engineering from the same university in 1956 and began his career as a founder of a construction company. This company evolved into his JP Realty, a commercial real estate development company.
Foxcroft School
Sisters Victoria Beth Mars and Pamela Mars Wright, and two of their daughters, Bernadette Schuetz Russell and Charlotte Audrey Rosseter, contributed $22 million to build a wing on the school’s main building. donated. The new wing will house the school’s science, technology, engineering, arts and math programs. All four women are heirs to a Martian candy company fortune and Foxcroft graduates.
Victoria Beth Mars is former Chairman of Mars Incorporated and currently Chairs the Salzburg Global Seminar, an international public relations non-profit organization in Salzburg, Austria. She graduated from school in 1974. One of Victoria Beth Mars’ daughters, her Bernadette Schuetz Russell, is a pediatric practitioner and in 2003 she graduated from Foxcroft.
Pamela Mars Wright is former Chairman of Mars and former Supervisory Board member of Amsterdam brewery Heineken International. She graduated from Foxcroft in 1978. Her daughter Charlotte Audrey Rossetter, who graduated from Foxcroft in 2012, is pursuing a doctorate in industrial and organizational psychology.
Furman University Athletics
Ravenel Curry III pledged $10 million to help renovate Timmons Arena, home of the college’s men’s and women’s basketball programs. Curry graduated from Furman University in 1963 and founded the investment firm Eagle Capital Management in New York. He donated his $1 million to the university in 2004 to support China Studies programs and help fund students to study in China.
New York Law School
Diane Abbey and Arthur Abbey donated $10 million to support a variety of initiatives, including scholarships, academic programs and expanding social justice programs. Arthur Abbey graduated from law school in 1959 with a law degree. He is a Senior Founding Partner and Chief Trial Counsel at the law firm Abbey Spanier, LLP. He has been a member of the law school board of directors for 27 years and chairman of the board for 23 years.
Diane Abbey founded the Diane Abbey Law Institute for Children and Families, a law school. The institute offers students the opportunity to gain experience working in family courts, government agencies, and non-profit organizations responsible for child and family protection. She previously taught English as a second language at Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx.
For other large donations, visit our regularly updated database of $1 million+ donations.
