$1-Million Grant for Bowers : Philanthropy: The Leo Freedman Foundation gift, to be paid over 6 years, is the largest in the museum’s 56-year history.

The Leo Freedman Foundation, playing Santa Claus to yet another arts organization in Orange County, has announced a $1-million grant to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art just months before its scheduled reopening. It is the largest cash grant in the museum’s 56-year history.

The gift, to be paid out over six years, will primarily be used for outreach programs and general operating support, according to a museum spokesman. To acknowledge the gift, the Bowers has renamed its Grand Galleria the Leo Freedman Galleria.

“To say the least, we’re ecstatic,” said Patricia House, museum director of development. “It really did a lot to (assist) our capital campaign.”

The Bowers, closed to the public since January, 1989, is scheduled to reopen Oct. 15 after a $12-million expansion and renovation that increased its interior space about six times. Officials hope to endow each of 15 galleries and event spaces within the museum before the reopening. So far, gifts of between $100,000 and $250,000 to endow galleries have been given by the Segerstrom family, the Fluor family, Parker Kennedy, and Peter and Mary Muth.

The Leo Freedman Foundation burst onto the local arts scene in December when it announced almost $1 million in grants to local arts groups, including $250,000 to the GroveShakespeare (formerly the Grove Shakespeare Festival), the largest grant that troupe ever received. Last month, the foundation announced a $150,000 grant to the Pacific Symphony.

Leo Freedman was an Anaheim businessman who developed the Melodyland Theater in 1962 and the Freedman Forum (now leased to the Celebrity Theatre) in 1986. He died three years later. The foundation he created will generate about $500,000 each year to be distributed to arts organizations in the county. The foundation will announce the balance of its grants for 1992 in December, trustee Sharon Jaquith said.

“We are impressed with not only the reputation of the Bowers Museum in Orange County and Santa Ana, but also nationally,” Jaquith said. The Bowers presented a “wonderful opportunity” for the foundation to fulfill its mission of supporting the arts in Orange County, she added.