City of Hope Receives $36-Million; Other Gifts

Several non-profit organizations have received big gifts.

* The City of Hope National Medical Center and Beckman Research Institute, in Duarte, Cal., has received $36-million from Irwin Helford to build a 144-bed hospital for cancer patients.

Mr. Helford is chairman of Viking Office Products, in Los Angeles, and vice-chairman of Office Depot, in Delray Beach, Fla. The two companies merged in May 1998. The new hospital, scheduled to open in 2004, will replace a current facility that is 50 years old.

* Pennsylvania State University has received $20-million from 1951 alumnus Verne M. Willaman, a member of the executive committee of Johnson & Johnson.

The gift will endow the deanship of the Eberly College of Science and Medicine, and augment endowments that Mr. Willaman had established previously to support professorships and scholarships.

Penn State announced the donation at the same time that it unveiled plans to raise $1-billion by 2003.

* The University of Memphis has announced that the Holiday Inns founder Kemmons Wilson will construct a hotel on campus, estimated to cost $15-million, that will create the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Once the four-story, fully functioning hotel is constructed, Mr. Wilson will hand over title to the university, which has tentative plans to either operate the for-profit venture itself or hire a company to do so. Curt Guenther, a university spokesman, said that it would keep all money made by the hotel.

* The University of Maryland at College Park has received $15-million from Clarice Smith, an artist and art collector, to endow the Center for the Performing Arts.

The facility, currently under construction, has been named in Mrs. Smith’s honor and will house the university’s dance, music, and theater departments. Mrs. Smith’s husband, Robert, a real-estate developer in Arlington, Va., gave $15-million in March 1998 to endow the business school.

* The University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, has received $10-million from George David, chairman of United Technologies Corporation, in Hartford, Conn., for the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.

Mr. David graduated from the Darden School in 1967. His gift is unrestricted.

* The New York investor Alberto Vilar, president of Amerindo Investment Advisors, has pledged $10-million to Washington and Jefferson College, in Washington, Pa., for a technology center.

Mr. Vilar, an alumnus, had made a previous pledge of $5-million in May 1998 to construct the building, which is tentatively scheduled to open in 2002. The Vilar Center for Technology will house the mathematics department and 200 computer workstations.

Other recent gifts:

Case Western Reserve U. (Ohio): $4,800,000 from Peter B. Lewis of Cleveland, chairman of the Progressive Corporation, to construct the new campus of the Weatherhead School of Management. The gift augments previous pledges from Mr. Lewis totaling $24,000,000.

Columbia U. (N.Y.): $5,000,000 from Jerome L. Greene of New York, a real-estate lawyer, to help renovate the Columbia Law School.

Hampton U. (Va.): $5,000,000 bequest from the estate of Jack T. Dorrance of Camden, N.J., former chairman of Campbell Soup Company, for unrestricted use.

Kansas State U.: $2,400,000 bequest from the estate of Florence Harold Marcoux of Oberlin, Kan., a teacher and the widow of Dale Marcoux, a business professor at K.S.U., for scholarships for first-year students.

Library of Congress (D.C.): $1,000,000 from Jerry Jones of Irving, Tex., owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team, and his wife, Gene, to purchase missing volumes from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson. The Library has started a search to locate duplicates of books that were destroyed in an 1851 fire at the U.S. Capitol.

Oklahoma Christian U. of Science & Arts: Charitable remainder trust valued at $9,600,000 from Leon Matula of Oklahoma City, president of Leon’s Radio Inc. and of L.B.B. Management, and his wife, Billye, for an endowment.

TransAfrica Forum (D.C.): $1,000,000 from the actor Danny Glover of San Francisco, for educational programs, endowment, and capital needs. TransAfrica Forum works on issues affecting U.S. policy toward Africa and the Caribbean.

U. of Florida: $2,000,000 from Margaret K. Atkins, widow of Louis Atkins, a dentist, to endow a program in health-care economics.

U. of Maryland at College Park: $6,000,000 from Leo Van Munching, Jr., of Stamford, Conn., a retired beer importer, for capital improvements to Van Munching Hall.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (D.C.): $5,000,000 from Eric F. Ross of South Orange, N.J., founder of Alpha Chemical, for unrestricted endowment.