Gifts Roundup: Denzel Washington Gives $1 Million for Debate Program

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center

Fayez and Susan Sarofim gave $25 million for an expansion project that will include a new hospital and trauma care center. The new building will be named for the donors.

Fayez Sarofim is an heir to an Egyptian cotton fortune and founded Fayez Sarofim & Company, an investment-management firm, in 1958.

Syracuse University

Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello donated $20 million to build the National Veterans Resource Center, which will house the university’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families, and education, vocational, and other programs for veterans. The new building is scheduled to open in 2020.

Daniel D’Aniello, a U.S. Navy veteran, is co-founder of the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm. He graduated from the university in 1968.

Rutgers University

Gary and Barbara Rodkin gave $15 million to build the Gary and Barbara Rodkin Center for Academic Success.

The new center will house academic-advising programs; spaces for one-on-one and group tutoring, workshops, and seminars; team study halls; and a computer lab. It will also include training facilities for the men’s and women’s soccer and lacrosse programs and offices for athletics administration.

Gary and Barbara Rodkin graduated from the university in 1974 and 1976, respectively. They met in the university’s library. Gary Rodkin retired as chief executive and president of ConAgra Foods in 2015.

National Library of Israel

Billionaire financier Stephen Schwarzman gave $10 million to establish the Stephen A. Schwarzman Education Center in the new National Library of Israel campus currently under construction in Jerusalem. It is set to open in 2021.

Schwarzman co-founded the Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm. This is not his first gift to a major library. In 2008 he gave $100 million to New York Public Library to renovate its flagship building and other branches in the system.

A prolific giver, he has appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors three times.

Wayne State University

Gretchen Valade pledged $2 million for additional performance space in the Gretchen Valade Jazz Center, which the university is currently building.

Valade, an heir to the Carhartt clothing company fortune, is chairman of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation, which oversees an annual Labor Day weekend festival in Detroit, and founded Mack Avenue Records.

She pledged $7.5 million to Wayne State’s jazz program in 2015.

Wiley College

The actor Denzel Washington committed $1 million for the college’s debate program.

This is Washington’s second such gift. He first donated $1 million in 2007 to re-establish the program, which had been inactive since the early 1900s, when it was led by English professor and poet, Melvin Tolson.

Washington starred in and directed the film The Great Debaters, which chronicled the history of the team under Tolson’s mentoring and coaching.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.