Category: Giving

Opening doors for those in need
After a lifetime of service in the education field, alumnus Ernesto Ruiz pays it forward to help future students

Costumes get lead role
Alumni Jim Gunderson and Peter Coha, along with their friend Gregg Barnes, are ensuring that students in the newly formed Department of Performance, Play & Design have costumes that will enrich their experience and enhance their performances.

Giving Day 2021: Widening the circle of support
Giving Day, once a fledgling fundraiser, has grown into one of UC Santa Cruz's philanthropic highlights of the year. This year's event will be on November 3.

‘Co-CEOs’
Alumni Vince and Christina Cavazos Bennett, who met as students at UC Santa Cruz, have built a complementary marriage and meaningful careers—and now they're giving back to the campus program that helped set them on their paths to success

Creating lasting good
Alumnus Jim Myers and husband Joe Levesque are using their life’s work to offer opportunities to worthy students, establishing four endowed funds for scholarships at UC Santa Cruz funded by their estate plan

Giving back to Banana Slugs in need
The UC Santa Cruz Alumni Scholarship Fund is a proud tradition on campus, helping graduates reconnect with the campus while paying it forward

UCSC expands COVID-19 testing during surge to support community needs
A gift from community members Bud and Rebecca Colligan is expanding testing capacity and helping fund a new, dedicated laboratory space to house the diagnostic lab in the Genomics Institute’s facilities at the Westside Research Park.

Raising a glass (and funds) for research
Michael David Winery—owned by the family of UC Santa Cruz virologist Rebecca DuBois—is helping fund the professor’s COVID-19 research with its “Going Viral” Merlot.

Building opportunity
Campus benefactor Jack Baskin not only established the Baskin School of Engineering Fund, but also a charitable remainder trust benefitting the fund—helping more than 5,000 students (and counting) gain engineering degrees and compete effectively in the job market.