Fullerton : Donor Gives $150,000 More for Center on Aging

With a $150,000 second donation from Charles L. Ruby of Fullerton, Cal State Fullerton’s new gerontology center is now on the verge of construction.

Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb said Ruby’s latest donation, which raises his total gifts to the center to more than $250,000, enables the university to seek construction bids this month. Actual construction could be under way by April, she said, with completion scheduled in August, 1988.

The gerontology center, which will cost $1.9 million, is being financed by private donations and will be the first such privately funded building on the Cal State Fullerton campus. The center will be used for the study of aging and many allied functions, including gatherings of senior citizens.

Ruby, 86, honorary chairman of the gerontology center project, opened the private fund drive in 1980 with a $100,000 donation. That original donation now has grown, with interest, to more than $160,000. Ruby, until his retirement in 1966, was a member of the business law faculty at Fullerton College for 37 years.

Cobb noted that Continuing Learning Experience (CLE) has led the private fund drive and that more than $677,000 of the gerontology building fund was contributed by CLE members. CLE was chartered by the university in 1979 to “serve the lifelong learning needs of retired and semi-retired individuals.”

“CLE members are remarkable volunteers,” Cobb said. “They have been totally dedicated to their goal of providing Orange County with a facility to study the challenges and problems of its aging population.”