Chapman University received a $3 million endowment from the Samueli Foundation for its annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest.
The competition, which started locally in 1999, has engaged more than 160,000 students in 45 states and 25 countries across the globe, including Poland.
The endowment will ensure that Chapman can keep hosting the contest as the size of it continues to grow, said Marilyn Harran, founding director of Chapman’s Barry and Phyllis Rodgers Center for Holocaust History.
“The contest has grown from a very local one to becoming really international,” Harran told the Business Journal.
Before providing this gift, Susan and Henry Samueli had sponsored the competition since its inception and acted as judges in previous years.
It’s one of the most recent contributions to Chapman’s Inspire campaign, which aims to raise $500 million by 2028. Chapman has now raised more than $394 million and is on track to meet its goal, according to Executive Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer Matt Parlow.
“We’re incredibly grateful that leaders in our community like the Samuelis partner with us on this important program and support the community,” Parlow told the Business Journal.
“We think it’s something that’ll have tremendous impact both here in Orange County and internationally.”
Personal Connection
In 2005, the couple donated an undisclosed amount to Chapman for the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library, named in honor of Henry’s parents, who were both Holocaust survivors.
His parents were Polish-Jewish immigrants who came to the United States in 1950 shortly after the end of the Holocaust with very little money.
“Our gift to create an endowment is equal parts a heartfelt thank you to Professor Harran and Chapman for their 25 years of dedication to the Holocaust Art and Writing Contest, and a signal of enduring Samueli family values,” President of Samueli Family Philanthropies Lindsey Spindle told the Business Journal via email.
The library’s collection of works includes a first edition Dutch version of The Diary of Anne Frank.
In addition to sponsoring the contest, the Samuelis made “a substantial gift” for a retrospective Holocaust exhibit the university held last spring at the Hilbert Museum, Harran said.
Henry is the co-founder and chairman of Broadcom Inc. (Nasdaq: AVGO), a chipmaker with an $803.8 billion market cap as of last week.
After Broadcom went public in 1998, the couple created the Samueli Foundation and have gifted over $1 billion to date for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, integrative health, youth services, social justice and Jewish culture.
This year, the foundation is on track to donate between $80 million to $90 million, according to Spindle.
Survivor Testimonies
Each year, middle school and high school students submit creative work ranging from essays, poems, visual artwork and film to the contest.
They’re asked to watch a full-length testimony from Holocaust survivors, a requirement Harran said she feels strongly about.
“Other contests allow students to maybe listen to a 10-minute segment where the person was in Auschwitz or in hiding, but they don’t have any awareness of what their life as an individual and a family was like before the Holocaust,” she said.
Harran conceptualized the contest 25 years ago with the president of the 1939 Society, a Holocaust survivor and descendants organization based in Los Angeles, who was interested in education outreach to younger students.
As the director of the center for Holocaust history at Chapman, Harran aims to bring educators and guest speakers to campus.
The center on Sept. 24 hosted an event featuring Marion Hess Ein Lewin, who is believed to be the last surviving twins of the Holocaust along with her brother Steven Hess and Stuart Eizenstat, who served as special advisor for Holocaust issues during the Obama administration.
“That’s something we want to work with educators to help them, in turn, teach students that the very ordinary choices they make every day can have tremendous consequences,” Harran said.
Part of the Samueli’s endowment will help fund a four-day study trip in the summer for winners to visit various Los Angeles museum sites.
Last year, 7,000 students from 161 schools across 10 countries participated in the contest.
There is a different theme every year for submissions. This year’s theme is posed as a question: “What do you bring when you don’t know where you’re going?” Submissions are due by Feb. 3 with winners announced on March 14.