Kroc’s $25-Million World Peace Offering

Philanthropist extraordinaire Joan B. Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s restaurant magnate Ray Kroc, has given $25 million to the University of San Diego to establish the Mohandas K. Gandhi Institute for Peace and Justice, the university announced Tuesday.

The money will be used for construction of the institute and program development, officials said. Planned for opening by 2000, the institute will focus on “San Diego’s strategic importance to the Pacific Rim and Latin America” and include several academic disciplines and international conferences.

“Joan Kroc’s gift, coming to us in the season of Lent, reflects her own desire to help achieve world peace,” said university President Alice B. Hayes.

Kroc, 69, served on the board of trustees of the Catholic school from 1978 to 1981 and received an honorary degree in 1988. In 1996, she donated $3 million to the university’s no-interest loan fund for students.

Forbes magazine in 1996 ranked her 11th among the nation’s top 25 philanthropists and estimated her donations in 1995 at $33 million.

In April 1997, Kroc was identified as the anonymous donor who provided $15 million to the people of flood-ravaged Grand Forks, N.D. The donation was enough to provide $2,000 to every family in town.

Kroc, the former owner of the San Diego Padres, lives in exclusive Rancho Santa Fe but grew up in St. Paul, Minn. She avoids publicity about her philanthropy.

Among her donations have been $60 million to the Ronald McDonald houses for cancer-stricken children and their families; $18.5 million to the San Diego Hospice; $1 million to the Betty Ford Center for alcoholism; $1 million to the San Diego Opera; and $1 million to the Special Olympics.

She also gave $6 million to the University of Notre Dame to open the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, devoted to the promotion of human rights, nuclear disarmament, global economic growth and protection of the environment.

In San Diego, Kroc has been a major contributor to the St. Vincent de Paul Village, which provides assistance and training for the homeless.

“Mrs. Kroc is interested in what the world is going to look like for the next generation,” said Msgr. Joe Carroll, the president of St. Vincent. “She decides what she wants to do--usually something humanitarian--and she just does it. She calls you--you don’t call her.”

The contribution to the University of San Diego is thought to be the largest individual gift to a San Diego college or university--topping the $15 million given by Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs and his wife, Joan, to the school of engineering at the UC San Diego.