Donor stories
Bequest worth millions made to SU
Stellenbosch University (SU) has received a large donation from an unexpected source. Ms Anna Maria Kuchler, who died in June 2009 at the age of 92, has left the University approximately R1.7 million in cash and stocks to the value of R14.3 million. In January this year that stock portfolio was worth R18 million.
Ms Kuchler, or Marietjie to those who knew her well, wished for her legacy to benefit an institution where it would address a pressing need. As stipulated in her will, the University will use this generous bequest to establish bursaries benefiting Afrikaans-speaking students who matriculated from schools in the Stellenbosch area.
While never a student at Stellenbosch, Ms Kuchler had a connection to the University via her longstanding friendship with Liza van Staden, daughter of AP du Preez, a former SU council member. Mrs van Staden's husband Niel advised Ms Kuchler on her investments and her estate. He was also the one who told her about the need for bursaries for matriculants in the Stellenbosch area.
Ms Kuchler came to South Africa from the Netherlands in 1954 when post-World War II Europe offered few work opportunities. Mr Antonie (Toon) Blijenberg, a friend, joined Ms Kuchler on her relocation to South Africa. Blijenberg died five years after their arrival in 1959.
Ms Kuchler had no family and was based in Sea Point, working as an office manager in Cape Town. She was an avid bridge player and businesswoman who loved to invest in stocks.
"Stellenbosch University is truly grateful for this generous gift. Visionaries like Ms Kuchler makes it possible for this institution to extend a helping hand to promising matriculants. We consider this bequest a gift to a future generation," said Prof Russel Botman, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch University.
"This is truly a life changing bequest to those matriculants form the Stellenbosch area who will benefit from the bursary," said Mr Hugo Steyn, Co-ordinator: Bequests.
For more information contact Mr Steyn at 021 808 3615 or by e-mailing him at hugos@sun.ac.za.
Daughter of Victoria College alumnus makes new bequest to Stellenbosch University
Pauline Marguerite Groves, who established The Chisnall Trust to support talented disadvantaged students at university, has made a bequest to Stellenbosch University to support aspects of the Institute for Mathematics and Science Teaching at Stellenbosch (IMSTUS).
Mrs Groves, a mathematics graduate of the University of Cape Town, has a long relationship with Stellenbosch University through previous Rector Professor Chris Brink who introduced her to IMSTUS and the exciting new developments in transforming mathematics teaching to better equip learners and university students for Higher Education. Mrs Groves would like to see her investment used to support the improvement of mathematics teaching in schools and support practising teachers in their continuing professional development.
Her family's relationship with Stellenbosch, however, goes back even further. Gerrit Adam Chisnall, Mrs Groves's father, was one of the first graduates of Victoria College and a contemporary of the well-known Paul Roos. Without winning a scholarship Mr Chisnall would have had no financial means of attending Victoria College, but he won a scholarship after passing matric "first class" in 1897. In appreciation of the scholarship enabling her father to study, more than 100 years ago, at what would become Stellenbosch University, Mrs Groves wished to include the University among the beneficiaries in her will.
Prior to the establishment of The Chisnall Trust, Mrs Groves supported financially needy students on an informal basis. Her philosophy, that monies from bequests be used to generate social capital, has assisted many disadvantaged students in intervening years.