A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation
Helena Theurer gave $25 million to back cancer research and patient care, and expand the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack Meridian Hackensack University Medical Center.
Theurer is a real-estate investor who led a truck-trailer company with her late husband John, who died in 1994. In 2010 she gave $10 million to establish the cancer center, which was then named for him. With this latest gift, medical center officials will name the institution’s newest building the Helena Theurer Pavilion.
Shriners Hospitals for Children St. Louis
Norman Harty left more than $8.4 million to back the hospital’s orthopedic health care programs. The hospital treats children regardless of their families’ ability to pay.
Harty died in 2017. He was the former president of First Commercial Bank in Dexter, Mo., and he owned 10 branches across southeast Missouri. He also founded N.B. Harty Contractors.
Albion College
Robert Richmond left over $7.5 million for financial aid and the college’s Comprehensive Public Health Initiative, a program to help students’ safe return to campus in the fall.
Albion officials said the portion of the bequest intended for financial aid will be used immediately to give special tuition scholarships to this year’s high-school seniors whose families were financially devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Richmond and his wife, Lois, founded B&L Plastics, in Rockford, Mich., in the 1970s and, later, B&L Development. He worked for IBM earlier in his career. Richmond, who attended Albion from 1959 to 1961, died last year.
Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund
Jrue and Lauren Holiday pledged approximately $5 million to create this new nonprofit. Most of the money will support nonprofits, Black-owned businesses, and local programs aimed at helping people of color in New Orleans, Indianapolis, and the Los Angeles area.
The couple are also directing some of their grants to Black-owned businesses in other cities across the country and to historically Black colleges and universities.
Jrue Holiday is a professional basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans, and formerly he played with the Philadelphia 76ers. Lauren Holiday is a retired professional soccer player who was on the U.S. women’s national soccer team from 2007 to 2015. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Immigrant Relief Fund for San Mateo County
John and Susan Sobrato gave $5.2 million through their Sobrato Philanthropies to establish the new fund, which will provide undocumented immigrant families in the county with with $1,000 unrestricted cash grants and a variety of services to help them through the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic crisis it has caused.
A number of private foundations have pitched in to create the fund, and the San Mateo County government has pledge additional grant money.
The Sobratos founded Sobrato Development Company, a commercial real-estate and development firm in Palo Alto, Calif. They have given extensively to nonprofits in the Silicon Valley region with a focus on helping low-income families and providing rent-free office space to local charities. They appeared on the Philanthropy 50 in 2106.
University of Southern California
Edward and Sandra Abrahamian pledged $4 million to endow scholarships and support other programs at the USC School of Architecture and USC School of Pharmacy.
The architecture school will use the money to create the Sandra and Edward C. Abrahamian Scholarship Endowment Fund, which will provide full scholarship support to one USC architecture student each year; and to renovate a student lounge and provide other resources to undergraduates and graduate students studying there.
The pharmacy school will use the money to launch the Frank C. Abrahamian Endowed Scholarship Fund, named for Edward’s late brother, who earned a Ph.D. from the pharmacy school in 1959. Full-time students enrolled in the Doctor of Pharmacy program will be eligible for the scholarship. The gift will also establish the Frank C. Abrahamian Endowed Technology Fund to maintain and upgrade classroom technology
Edward Abrahamian is a retired architect who was a partner at Abrahamian, Pagliassotti and Tanaka Architects, a Pasadena, Calif., firm. He earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from USC in 1963.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of giftsof $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.
