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Clark College Foundation to reveal largest scholarship gift, fundraising campaign

$35 million campaign, plus single largest scholarship gift will be unveiled

VANCOUVER, Wash. —Clark College and Clark College Foundation will announce the single largest scholarship gift ever received and the largest fundraising campaign in the college’s history during a gala event on Thursday.

The annual Savoring Excellence dinner and program on November 15 will feature performances by mezzo-soprano and Clark alumna Laura Beckel Thoreson; Clark’s Concert Choir, student artists and musicians, highlights of the 2018 Outstanding and Rising Star Alumni Award winners, and two recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Philanthropy.

The presidential award recipients are The Boschma family, who provided a 70-acre land gift in Ridgefield in 2014 that will serve as Clark’s newest campus, and Robert Wallace, a 1937 Clark graduate who established a charitable remainder trust to benefit his family and the college before his death in 2005. That trust is valued at $4 million.

Bob Blanchard, son of Wallace and a Vancouver resident, will announce that the $4 million gift is for scholarships to support Clark College students. This is one of the largest individual gifts ever given to Clark College. The donation is second only to the more than $28 million that Roy Andersen gave to Clark College Foundation in the 1990s. Additionally, it is tied with two other generous gifts given in previous years. The donation will profoundly affect students who will now have access to scholarships that they otherwise may not have been able to qualify for in order to attend the college.

The night’s program also reveals Clark College Foundation’s ambitious $35 million fundraising campaign, Promising Pathways: The Campaign for Clark College. This largest-ever campaign focuses on key projects and programs over the course of the next three years. Initiatives such as Guided Pathways, scholarships, advanced manufacturing, cuisine and pastry arts, veterans’ resources, automotive, mature learning and other projects. Details of the campaign are on Clark College Foundation’s newly launched Promising Pathways: The Campaign for Clark College website.

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