$5 million donation is biggest in central San Joaquin Valley college’s 95-year history
College of the Sequoias received a $5.4 million anonymous donation that’s the largest in the Visalia school’s 95-year history, it announced Thursday.
The donors are a now-deceased couple, COS said in a news release.
“This couple are incredibly philanthropic. Their frugal lifestyle and generosity resulted in three endowments and several other transformative gifts that will bring positive changes in COS student lives forever,” College of the Sequoias foundation director Tim Foster said.
While the couple were alive they had been donating $50,000 in scholarship money annually to help students in the nursing and the physical therapy assistant program.
The new donation will continue to fund these programs while also supporting three new areas; medical education, scholarships for teachers and expanding technology.
COS announced a $550,000 capital gift to “expand and enhance” its Nursing and Allied Health simulation lab.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing students to distance learn, many students had a difficult time getting the hands-on training and clinical hours required to become a nurse.
The new donation will allow the college to purchase equipment and do the building modifications necessary to create a three-phase simulation lab that will help bridge the distance-learning gap, according to the release.
In addition to expanding buildings, the college is using the donation money to invest $2 million in the COS Local Heroes Fund. It offers scholarships and financial resources to students pursuing careers in education, medicine, law enforcement and firefighting.
Lastly, the college will invest $1.5 million to create a technology endowment to fund programs that focus on technological innovation like the college’s makerspace.
Currently, students who participate in the makerspace work on virtual reality, mobile application development and 3D modeling projects.
