Yoshida donated one million dollars; Where is it now?

Photo courtesy of the Gresham Outlook

In September 2014, Mt. Hood Community College received a $1 million donation from local businessman Junki Yoshida.

Yoshida came to America from Japan without proper documentation. He managed to elude immigration officers while he worked his way through Highline Community College, located near Seattle. He gave karate lessons to Highline students in exchange for paying tuition, he recalled during the gift celebration.

He’s never forgotten that start, while becoming a big supporter of MHCC, along with his wife, Linda, since the couple moved to Oregon.

“(I)t’s about providing young people an opportunity, hope and ambition for this world. You are doing that as staff and teachers,” he told the Mt. Hood audience that Wednesday in September.

So, what’s been done with that big donation in the last year?

To start, Yoshida entrusted MHCC President Debbie Derr with dispersing the money to where it’s deemed most appropriate within the college.

“Debbie is still working on (needed improvements) and (asking) ‘Where is the biggest need?,’” said Al Sigala, executive director of the MHCC Foundation and alumni affairs.

Sigala said that the list of needs within the school is big, but one of the first priorities was to try to get a large, new scholarship available to students. “We want the scholarship to make a direct impact so that students are seeing the benefit of that gift,” he said.

The entire donation can go towards classrooms and curriculum improvements, but the scholarship will be shaped by Derr’s decision.

“We started with $50,000 and a minimum of $10,000 every year that we receive money will go back into that endowed scholarship,” the MHCC president said. She said she is looking into what type of criteria the “legacy scholarship” should have.

“We want to leave it as flexible as possible, but I want to get a sense from them – [the money] will be ‘forever’ – an endowed scholarship,” Derr said. The endowment is expected to last a long time, and would provide multiple scholarships for students every year.

Derr said the Yoshida gift will come through the span of 10 years. “We get $100,000 each year – we don’t have $1 million in the bank today,” she said. The amount the scholarship would give to students hasn’t been decided. Next year will be the first year that some of the scholarship money will be given out, the president confirmed.

Initially, about $14,000 went towards the Yoshida Event Center’s (the renamed Mt. Hood main gymnasium) improvements – a new paint job inside, repainted pillars, and replacing the carpeting. “It’s… provided a nicer environment for our student athletes and students” in that area, Derr said.

Sigala said other uses for the Yoshida money could be classroom equipment or needs that other programs have.

For instance, Derr said her goal is to have Open Educational Resources – a means with which to provide students with free textbooks.

“I have offered $10,000 in a grant this year to the faculty to develop Open Educational Resources (OER),” she said. This is where text material is being developed “in lieu of” a textbook, that is free to students and is “open source” – anyone can use it.

“Our OER committee is working with faculty who might be interested in doing that,” Derr said.

The Yoshidas have long known Derr, which made giving her control of the money more comfortable.

Derr worked at MHCC for 15 years, from the 1990s up to 2002, before leaving for the Midwest, and knew the couple through their Foundation assistance.

“They have always been so generous to help the college Foundation with fundraising activities and opening up their home,” Derr said. “I reconnected with them right after I came back and started as the president” in 2013, she said.

The friendship with the president may have been the reason that prompted the gift.

“[Junki Yoshida] holds a lot of respect for Debbie and obviously, we hold a lot of respect for him. He knows it’s going to be spent well,” Sigala said.

Their trust level is high. Sigala said the Yoshidas didn’t request to know exactly how their donation money was to be spent, except “that we still do (tell them).  We let them know, because they’re good friends to the college and they are very familiar with the president.”

The couple host the Yoshida Cup (formerly NW Classic) every year and this year is the 30th anniversary of the major regional karate competition. The event will be held in the Yoshida Event Center on March 19-20.

Advocate Staff