DeGroote School of Medicine scores $50m donation from David Braley
*Update: Click to see the breakdown of the donation
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David Braley donates 2ND LARGEST amount to McMaster
11AM TODAY - MUSC ATRIUM
Photo taken from Joey Coleman's Macleans blog. Read his post here.
INVITATION FROM PETER GEORGE
Dear members of the McMaster community:
On Wednesday, June 27 we will celebrate a keystone announcement that will have a tremendous impact on McMaster University and Canada. The event will take place in the Donaldson Family Marketplace, McMaster University Student Centre at 11:00 a.m.
McMaster students, staff and faculty are asked to enter the MUSC through the doors closest to Mills Memorial Library, and proceed to the second or third floor balcony areas overlooking the Marketplace.
To assist with the event the Marketplace including the Tim Hortons outlet will be closed from 10:30 to 12 noon.
Following the program, please enjoy some light refreshments in the Marketplace.
I look forward to sharing this very special occasion with you on the 27th.
Peter George
PHOTO OF DAVID BRALEY:
STORY FROM THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR:
McMaster University is to announce the second-largest gift in its history today when businessman and philanthropist David Braley makes a multi-million-dollar commitment to the university's medical school.
The Spectator has confirmed through sources that the gift -- to be announced at a news conference at the university this morning -- ranks second only to the $105-million donation that businessman Michael DeGroote gave the medical school in 2003, leading the university to name it after him.
To date, the next largest gift to the school is believed to be $25 million bequeathed by Harry Lyman Hooker, who died in 1979.
Braley's gift is the second major contribution the university has received in the past two weeks. On June 18, the school announced that Ron Joyce -- the man behind the rise of the Tim Hortons empire -- was contributing $10 million toward its planned new Burlington campus. That was in addition to $10 million Joyce previously gave the university for its new football stadium, now under construction.
Braley, a man who has built his fortune quietly and prefers to maintain a low public profile, has been on a giving streak lately -- $20 million in the past 10 months.
Last August, he gave the university $5 million for its new athletics complex. In May, Braley and his wife Nancy Gordon donated $10 million to Hamilton Health Sciences toward a cardiac, vascular and stroke research institute.
Then, later that same month, they gave another $5 million to St. Joseph's Healthcare to pay for a kidney-urinary care unit and 18 operating rooms.
Braley, 66, is the owner of Orlick Industries, an autoparts company he bought in 1969. He parlayed it into an industry powerhouse, and used the proceeds to invest in other businesses and real estate.
Braley -- a graduate of Westdale Secondary School who later studied science at McMaster -- has said in the past that he is eager to invest his money in the community where he made it, to help his employees, their families and the community at large.
Braley, who lives in Burlington, is also the owner of the Canadian Football League's B.C. Lions.
