A gift to make great-grandfather proud

Megan Goss and friends An OSU student and her family's legacy of generosity brought joy to young lives in OSU's Child Development Laboratory this summer. A special gift of $15,000 from the Willard L. Eccles Foundation provided preschool children with books, a field trip to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and backpacks they'll take to kindergarten this fall.

The Eccles Foundation was established by the great-grandfather of Megan Goss, a senior in Human Development and Family Sciences focusing on Early Childhood Development. Family members each choose a nonprofit to benefit from funding, and Goss decided that her annual gift from the foundation would support Kathleen McDonnell's bilingual preschool class where she was a student teacher last fall.

"For my family to be able to do this is unbelievable," says Goss, who intends to work with preschoolers after earning her master's degree in teaching. "It feels so good to help make decisions about how the funds will be spent and assure that the kids will benefit directly."

Joanne Sorte, the director of the Child Development Center, says that remaining funds may be used for needs including "a listening center, the addition of bilingual books to the library, geography materials, a laptop computer to support translation of parent materials, and coats and gloves to keep at school for children who forget or don't have these."

Adapted from Synergies, the online newsletter of the College of Health and Human Sciences; photo provided by Pat Newport

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