Donor Report 2009

A gift from all of us — Harrison Family

In 2008 Reid (’59) and Marilyn (O’Neill) Harrison (’61) created an endowment that has become a real family affair.

Several years ago, after decades of donating to a range of projects — everything from class projects to the 5th Quarter Club, from monthly donations to annual gifts — the couple got the idea to start requesting donations to their alma mater in lieu of Christmas gifts.

Says Marilyn, “Every year at Christmas time our kids David (’83) and Janet (’87) would scratch their heads about what to get us for the occasion. We needed nothing. Knowing they are also proud supporters of Mount A, we offered up the idea of making a donation to one of our favourite organizations. Those included UNICEF, our church, and others. But every year they seemed to be drawn to Mount A.”

With the family’s increase in assistance to Mount Allison, Reid and Marilyn started to think about creating an endowment fund — a place where all of their family’s contributions could support a single, larger project. When Susan Springer, Mount Allison’s manager of Alumni and Donor Records, suggested creating a family bursary, it immediately resonated with the couple.

Says Marilyn, “We were both teachers in Nova Scotia, and Reid was later Superintendent of Schools for the Dartmouth District School Board. Education is of paramount interest to us. We’re big supporters of Mount Allison’s philosophy of educating the whole student. It’s the kind of well-rounded education that is producing the citizens of tomorrow to lead us, and it would delight us to help a deserving young person benefit as we did, and as our children did, from a Mount Allison education.”

That’s when the project really started to get fun.

Marilyn and her sister Linda O’Neill (’64) decided to make birthday gifts to each other by donating to the fund. And when Reid recently celebrated a milestone birthday, a number of extended family members recognized his special day with a gift to the bursary in his name.

Says Marilyn, “We were amazed at how a mere mentioning of the fund snowballed into a really positive result. And a couple of family members (non-alumni) were thrilled to then receive phone calls from current Mount Allison students, thanking them for their generosity.”

Starting in 2010 the Harrison Family Bursary will enable a deserving young person from Dartmouth to benefit from the kind of well-rounded education that served Reid, Marilyn, and their children so well.