Marine Institute Receives $9.5 Million in Donations
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DANA POINT — A children-oriented marine institute in Dana Point that has scraped for money and donations to keep its popular programs afloat received a financial boost Wednesday that will help transform the facility into a research campus for youngsters.
The benefactors of the Ocean Institute are high-tech executive Henry Samueli and an anonymous donor who put up $9.5 million to help reshape the marine science facility as an education center for the youngest students.
The Samueli Foundation gave $5.5 million to the institute, and a family that asked to remain anonymous put up $4 million.
The gift provides a money jolt for those planning the $16.6-million education center at the marine institute, where small handouts from the city and occasional state grants are the norm.
Bill Habermehl, board chairman of the private nonprofit institute, said that a new 32,000-square-foot research facility should be completed by January 2002.
More than 78,000 schoolchildren from California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada took part in the institute’s programs last year. The new center will accommodate as many as 135,000 pupils a year.
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