Education

Lynda Resnick Announces $1 Million Fund For Fresno State Graduates During Their Commencement


Face it, most commencement speeches are boring, listened to with thinly disguised impatience by the graduates and their guests who sit through what seems to many of them like interminable folderol. In fact commencement speakers often try to reassure graduates at the beginning of their address that if they can’t be memorable, they will at least promise to be brief.

But this weekend’s keynote commencement address to the 2020 and 2021 graduating classes of California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) might just prove to be an exception. During her address, Lynda Resnick – philanthropist, vice-chairman and co-owner of The Wonderful Company – announced a new, $1 million fund that she and her husband, Stewart Resnick, were establishing to encourage students to do local community service.

Likening the initiative to the “butterfly effect,” in which “a meteorologist’s computer model revealed that something as tiny as the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil might start a ripple effect that ultimately causes a tornado in Texas,” Resnick told the graduates, “In other words, tiny things can have enormous consequences. This is also true of actions. Selfless acts can start a domino effect that cascades upward and outward and does tremendous good. Our work is never done, because community building is a pursuit, not just a goal.”

She added, “We want you graduates to work side by side with us, flapping your wings with small, selfless acts, creating the ripple effect that will save the world.”

‘Today, we are establishing a $1 million fund to pay you for doing community service. It’s called The Wonderful Butterfly Project, and it’s solely for you, graduates of the Fresno State classes of 2020 and 2021. You will have the opportunity to volunteer for two days at the nonprofit of your choice. And when you do, we will send you a check for $500.”

“We hope that this million-dollar gift to your classes will inspire you. Flap your wings, kick up dust, and bring a tornado of change down on anyone who tells you that it’s impossible to fix the world. You are the ones who will take to the air and inspire us all to fly higher once again!”

The $1 million “Wonderful Butterfly Project” fund will pay up to $500 for each of the first 2,000 graduates from the Fresno State classes of 2020 and 2021 who complete two days of service with nonprofit organizations in their local communities. The service projects need to be completed by December 31, 2021.

In total, it’s anticipated that the fund will generate 32,000 hours – or about 3.5 years – of volunteer work for organizations in the local vicinity. Graduates can visit www.wonderfulbutterflyproject.com. to match with local nonprofits and apply for funding once they’ve completed their community service hours.

In recognition of the Resnick’s influence on business, agriculture, marketing and philanthropy, Fresno State is awarding Lynda Resnick an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters and Stewart Resnick an honorary degree of Doctor of Science this spring.

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Stewart and Lynda Resnick are the founders and owners of The Wonderful Company, a Los Angeles-based company that produces and markets a range of consumer products, including brands such as Wonderful Pistachios, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, P M Wonderful, FIJI Water, JUSTIN and Landmark wines, and Teleflora. It’s estimated to be worth $5 billion and employs more than 10,000 people worldwide.

With a net worth estimated by Forbes at $9 billion, the Resnicks have an extensive record of philanthropy, reflected in numerous major gifts in support of education, health and wellness, and local communities in California’s Central Valley. In 2019, they pledged $750 million to the California Institute of Technology to advance global environmental sustainability research. It is the largest gift in Cal Tech’s history. They also gave a $10 million gift to Fresno State for the construction of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Student Union.

Prominent among the Resnicks’ other naming gifts are the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law (from which Stewart graduated), the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the forthcoming Lynda and Stewart Resnick Cultural Center at the Hammer Museum, and the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies on the Aspen Institute campus.

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California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is one of the 23 campuses in the California State University system. Its total enrollment is about 25,000 students, more than half of whom are Hispanic. Of entering freshmen at Fresno State, over 60% receive a Pell Grant. It offers baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degrees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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