An MSU Love Story, Told Through Life Stories
Marge des Lauriers, ’52 (left), meets Anastasia Saura, one of her scholarship recipients from the College of Education.
For Marge des Lauriers and her late husband, Brad, making an impact at MSU is their way to show love.
Giving back started early on for Marge. She was busy reading to a kindergarten class the moment she realized she wanted to be a teacher—even though she was only a first grader herself at the time.
What better place to pursue teaching than Michigan State University?
Marge earned her degree in 1952 and worked hard to pay for school, first as an operator at Michigan Bell and later through part time jobs on and off campus.
She met a fellow named Brad at one of those jobs, who was also giving back, “scraping dishes in the bowels of Yakeley Hall.” Because there’s no bond quite like one built in a campus dishroom, Brad eventually became her husband.
In the years that followed, work and family took the des Lauriers in many different directions, but their connection to MSU was always a priority. They made their first gift to Michigan State in 1955.
“Brad is the one who really started us on the road to giving,” Marge says. “It was just a couple dollars at first, and I remember saying to him, ‘that’s not much of a donation!’ and he said, ‘well, you’ve got to start somewhere!’”
Sixty-eight years (and counting!) after that first humble gift, Marge continues to give back, using her philanthropy to honor the people, places and things she and her family hold dear on campus.
In honor of Marge’s late sister Angeline Buckwick—an MSU alumna and lifelong teacher—the family established a memorial scholarship in education and sponsored a bench in the 4-H Children’s Garden, a place Angeline loved to take her schoolchildren on field trips.
Another gift supporting the MSU Bike Shop honors their Spartan son Paul’s love for cycling.
Additionally, Marge and Brad documented an estate gift that established two scholarships to support students pursuing careers in the fields they loved: education for Marge and construction management for Brad. Regular cash gifts have enabled these funds to make an impact on scholarship recipients for many years and their estate gift will be divided equally between both endowments in the future.
“College is so expensive now,” says Marge. “As the scholarship funds grow, I like seeing them make an even bigger dent in the costs these students face in pursuit of their dreams.”