KINGSTON – A $1 million donation by the family of late business leader and philanthropist Norman M. Fain, a University of Rhode Island alumnus, will help establish a center for Jewish campus life that will bear Fain’s name.
His wife, Rosalie Fain, and other family members announced their gift at a reception last night attended by more than 100 students, faculty, staff, alumni, Jewish community leaders and friends of the URI Hillel.
“We see this as a fitting tribute to our father and an opportunity to invest in the future of the Jewish community,” said Jonathan Fain, son of Norman and Rosalie Fain.
The 7,400-square-foot Norman M. Fain Hillel Center will include a kosher kitchen and dining space; a Beit Knesset for Shabbat gatherings, which also may be used for lectures, films and discussions; multi-purpose lounges; an outdoor patio for social events and the campus Sukkah; a library and computer lab that will house the Hillel book collection; and a reception area with information kiosk and coffee bar.
Nationwide, more than 35 Hillel Foundations have built or refurbished their facilities in the past 13 years, noted Barbara Sokoloff, Barbara Sokoloff Associates of Providence, president of the URI Hillel board. “In each case, the new Hillel centers enhanced the quality of campus life and expanded student involvement,” she said. “Based on feedback from students, faculty and staff and parents, URI Hillel should see similar results here. With the space, there will be new opportunities for students to grow as people and as Jews.”
The URI Hillel Foundation is seeking to raise $3 million to design and create the center – by renovating the former Alpha Epsilon Pi Jewish Fraternity House on URI’s Kingston Campus – and another $1 million to establish a permanent endowment to support the center’s operations and maintenance.
The Norman and Rosalie Fain Family Foundation’s gift “lays the foundation for Hillel’s $4 million Capital Campaign,” the university said in a statement. Qualifying gifts of $25,000 or more will attract matching funds, up to $250,000, from a Capital Campaign Challenge Grant to Hillel’s International Center in Washington, D.C., according to Lawrence Sadwin, URI Hillel’s development director. All gifts of $1,500 or more will be acknowledged in the new center, he said.
“Hillel has been a part of the URI family for many years,” noted URI President Robert L. Carothers. “It helps build a strong sense of community for our students and guides them toward roles as active citizens in our nation. … I am so grateful to the Fain family for their commitment to Jewish students and to all the students of URI.”
Additional information, including other news from the University of Rhode Island, is available at www.uri.edu/news/.
The Hillel Foundation at URI – currently serving about 1,200 students – is part of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, an international organization dedicated to enriching the lives of Jewish students. For more information about the URI Hillel Capital Campaign, call Amy Olson, URI Hillel’s executive director, or Lawrence Sadwin, director of development, at 874-2740.
