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‘Jeopardy!’ Host Alex Trebek Funds Fordham Students
Game show host donates $1 million to New York’s Fordham University
By MELANIE GRAYCE WEST / WALL STREET JOURNAL
Oct. 6, 2015
A: This famous host of the televised quiz show “Jeopardy!”, who frequents the city to visit his son, just donated $1 million to New York’s Fordham University.
Q: Who is Alex Trebek?
The donation, said the 75-year-old Mr. Trebek, is to endow a scholarship fund to help needy Fordham students from the Harlem area. In restricting the gift to students from a small geographic area, he said he hopes to make a meaningful impact in a neighborhood.
“If I’m going to do something out of generosity, or whatever, I’d like it to make an impact and I’d like to know who it is making an impact on,” said Mr. Trebek. “So the smaller the area of help, I think, the better it is.”
The first recipient of the Trebek scholarship is Estefania Cruz, a class of 2017 history major at Fordham’s campus in the Rose Hill section of the Bronx. More than 90% of Fordham undergraduates receive financial aid.
The connection to Fordham and Harlem is through Mr. Trebek’s son, Matthew, who graduated from Fordham in 2013. The younger Trebek now resides in Harlem and will soon open a restaurant in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, said Mr. Trebek, who himself received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2011.
As his son has settled in the neighborhood, so has Mr. Trebek. As he has helped his son with wiring, plumbing, painting and general handy-dad work around his son’s brownstone over the past few months, Mr. Trebek has made the neighborhood his home, too. The local police station and the garbage haulers know him. He gets a 10% discount at the neighborhood hardware store. Londel’s is his dinner spot.
“I’ve learned to like this community a lot,” said Mr. Trebek, “and Matthew does also.”
The idea for the scholarship fund took root a few years ago. According to Mr. Trebek, Fordham’s president Joseph McShane asked him to consider endowing a philosophy chair for the school. At that time, Mr. Trebek’s own alma mater, the University of Ottawa, was “already on my trail,” he joked (an alumni hall is named for him there). So he put off the conversation for a while.
But, about a year ago, Mr. Trebek was invited to breakfast with Rev. McShane and the head of the college’s development department. Mr. Trebek presented the idea for the scholarship fund.
“It was the most expensive breakfast,” he deadpanned.
Mr. Trebek’s philanthropic interests also include the National Geographic Society and World Vision International. With World Vision, Mr. Trebek has most recently supported a boarding school for girls that come from Northern Kenya. If the girls get to a school, explained Mr. Trebek, they are often able to avoid a ritual female circumcision.
“I’m at the age now where I don’t need the money,” said Mr. Trebek. “So I guess the goal now is to find new ways to help other people and different ways in which to do it.”
Write to Melanie Grayce West at melanie.west@wsj.com
Game show host donates $1 million to New York’s Fordham University
By MELANIE GRAYCE WEST / WALL STREET JOURNAL
Oct. 6, 2015
A: This famous host of the televised quiz show “Jeopardy!”, who frequents the city to visit his son, just donated $1 million to New York’s Fordham University.
Q: Who is Alex Trebek?
The donation, said the 75-year-old Mr. Trebek, is to endow a scholarship fund to help needy Fordham students from the Harlem area. In restricting the gift to students from a small geographic area, he said he hopes to make a meaningful impact in a neighborhood.
“If I’m going to do something out of generosity, or whatever, I’d like it to make an impact and I’d like to know who it is making an impact on,” said Mr. Trebek. “So the smaller the area of help, I think, the better it is.”
The first recipient of the Trebek scholarship is Estefania Cruz, a class of 2017 history major at Fordham’s campus in the Rose Hill section of the Bronx. More than 90% of Fordham undergraduates receive financial aid.
The connection to Fordham and Harlem is through Mr. Trebek’s son, Matthew, who graduated from Fordham in 2013. The younger Trebek now resides in Harlem and will soon open a restaurant in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, said Mr. Trebek, who himself received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2011.
As his son has settled in the neighborhood, so has Mr. Trebek. As he has helped his son with wiring, plumbing, painting and general handy-dad work around his son’s brownstone over the past few months, Mr. Trebek has made the neighborhood his home, too. The local police station and the garbage haulers know him. He gets a 10% discount at the neighborhood hardware store. Londel’s is his dinner spot.
“I’ve learned to like this community a lot,” said Mr. Trebek, “and Matthew does also.”
The idea for the scholarship fund took root a few years ago. According to Mr. Trebek, Fordham’s president Joseph McShane asked him to consider endowing a philosophy chair for the school. At that time, Mr. Trebek’s own alma mater, the University of Ottawa, was “already on my trail,” he joked (an alumni hall is named for him there). So he put off the conversation for a while.
But, about a year ago, Mr. Trebek was invited to breakfast with Rev. McShane and the head of the college’s development department. Mr. Trebek presented the idea for the scholarship fund.
“It was the most expensive breakfast,” he deadpanned.
Mr. Trebek’s philanthropic interests also include the National Geographic Society and World Vision International. With World Vision, Mr. Trebek has most recently supported a boarding school for girls that come from Northern Kenya. If the girls get to a school, explained Mr. Trebek, they are often able to avoid a ritual female circumcision.
“I’m at the age now where I don’t need the money,” said Mr. Trebek. “So I guess the goal now is to find new ways to help other people and different ways in which to do it.”
Write to Melanie Grayce West at melanie.west@wsj.com
