NMCC nets $5M gift for campus renovations
In an announcement today, Northern Maine Community College said it has received a $5 million private gift from Presque Isle native Mary Barton Akeley Smith. The money will be used to renovate two campus facilities.
The gift will fund work to turn a 9,000-square-foot building into a dining commons to the Rodney Smith Center for Fitness and Occupational Wellness, in honor of the donor's late husband, according to a press release. A 14,000-square-foot building that is now a gymnasium will become the new Akeley Student Center, which will include a dining commons, in honor of the donor's parents and family. The renovation work totals $6 million, and NMCC this month will begin fundraising efforts for the remaining $1 million. The college hopes to complete both renovation projects over the next year and a half.
Smith, who now lives in California, last year gave the college a $1.2 million gift for its alternative energy program and supported an expansion of the city's Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library with a $1 million contribution. According to the release, Smith's husband was a successful semiconductor businessman in Silicon Valley and a philanthropist.
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