Annual Report
2024/2025
Dear Friends,
I am honored to share with you the ESF College Foundation Annual Report and Honor
Roll of Donors. Within these pages, you’ll find your name among thousands of alumni,
parents, friends, and organizations who generously supported ESF students and academic
programs this past year.
Thank you.
Together, your collective giving totaled more than $8 million in fiscal year 2024–25. These contributions allowed the College to award over $1.8 million in scholarships, expand academic opportunities, and enhance our research programs. Your support is helping ESF students and faculty change our world for the better.
This year’s giving also helped fuel the momentum of the Campaign for SUNY ESF, a bold and transformative initiative with a goal of raising $40 million to strengthen the College’s future. I’m thrilled to share that we’ve already raised over $36 million toward that goal thanks to donors like you. Whether you gave to scholarships, research, or career opportunities, your gift is part of this campaign and is making a lasting impact.
To celebrate your generosity, this publication features stories of students and programs you’ve helped shape, along with reflections from fellow donors who share your commitment to ESF’s mission. You make a difference here. I hope you feel proud of what your investment has accomplished — at the College and in the lives of our students. We are deeply grateful for your support.
With appreciation,
Brenda Greenfield
Chief Advancement Officer
Executive Director, ESF College Foundation & Subsidiaries
President's Remarks
Joanne M. Mahoney
President, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Thank you for your generous support of ESF. Your contributions during the last fiscal year directly supported the newly launched Campaign for SUNY ESF, a transformative initiative designed to shape the future of the College.
Foundation Success Stories
The Ecology of Healing
For Olivia Kurz, ecology is the study of intimate relationships. A Ph.D. candidate at ESF in conservation biology, she investigates relationships between species, relationships between people, and relationships between people and the land where they live.
“We can’t look at ecology with humans outside of it, so restoring the ecosystem means examining our relationships within it,” Kurz said.
A Tribute to TIBS
The Magnusons care deeply for the St. Lawrence and the people who protect it. Their love for the river inspired them to give to several organizations, including the Thousand Islands Land Trust, the Antique Boat Museum — and ESF’s Thousand Islands Biological Station (TIBS). Though they met as undergraduates at Syracuse University and neither attended ESF, the Magnusons contributed generously to TIBS, gifting the station with a new research vessel and an endowed scholarship for a summer intern.
Making a Difference
Thanks to donor support, Melia Kanaovicz, a senior environmental biology major at ESF, spent her summer contributing to a groundbreaking mosquito surveillance program in St. Lawrence County; an effort that’s already making a difference in public health.
“This was my first season of proper field work. It was incredibly rewarding to contribute to something that will continue to benefit public health in the county” she said.
A Critical Time for Giving
Bruce Bongarten had a mission when he served as provost and senior vice president
for Academic Affairs at ESF: creating a culture where people felt valued, a space
where they were given opportunities to grow and were rewarded for their achievements.
For Bongarten, that applied to educators and students alike.
“There’s an intimacy at ESF that you don’t find in most other research institutions,” said Bongarten