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Large Donation Makes News at Glendale College |
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Bhupesh Parikh had a million reasons to make a sizable donation to Glendale Community College. But none of them had anything to do with having a building named after him and his family. Rather, he wanted to help people in the in the community he lived in and the school where his wife, Kumud, once took accounting classes. And so it was that the college’s best kept secret, a $1 million donation, was announced on Tuesday August 30 at Faculty Institute Day. The standing-room only crowd of faculty and administrators showed their appreciation with a shower of applause as Parikh as his family joined Dr. Davitt and others on the auditorium stage. The new allied health building will be called the Bhupesh Parikh Health Sciences and Technology building, and the expanded nursing program which will be housed there will be named after Parikh’s wife, Kumud. The 41,000 square foot building is scheduled to open in 2007 and will also give the college its first on-campus health sciences lab, as well as space for digital arts and graphics labs. The generous donation came about thanks to the foresight of Foundation Board member Pat Crouch, an alumna of the college, who has known Parikh and his family for 25 years. Crouch said that she and Parikh had been talking about his desire to give something back to the community, and she mentioned the needs of the college. The relationship was established soon after that. Parikh has lived in Glendale since 1969 and works as a structural engineer. Although he has been a donor to several causes over the years, his generous gift to the college makes it twice in less than 10 years that the campus has been the recipient of a million-dollar gift. In 1999, alumni Larry and Ralph Cimmarusti donated $1 million toward to help fund the science center that now bears their name. As was done with the science center, planetarium and most recently at Sartoris Field, a donor wall will be created for the Bhupesh Parikh Health Sciences and Technology building as a way to raise additional funds for the project. Anyone interested in contributing to this project or any other donor wall opportunities on campus should call the Foundation at x5199.& |
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