Bringing Beauty to the World, One Gift at a Time

The story begins on a snowy winter night in 2009.

“I heard a cat insistently meowing, and I thought it was our black cat Toby, who should have been on our screened-in back porch,” says Carol Prahinski, assistant professor of supply chain management in MSU’s Broad College of Business. “But the meowing was at the front door. I wondered how Toby had escaped. I opened the door and picked him up. He was meowing like crazy—which was unusual for Toby.”

At the same time, Carol’s boyfriend and future husband, Flemming Mathiasen, opened the back door and Toby darted in. “He runs into the living room and stops dead in his tracks when he sees a black cat in Carol’s arms,” Flemming says. That’s how Plato came to join their household.

Fast-forward to spring 2020.

“Plato was lethargic; he didn’t seem right,” Flemming says. Unfortunately, Plato’s diagnosis that day was a large mass in his abdomen. He survived four weeks on palliative care and died peacefully at home on May 26, 2020.

While thinking of their beloved Plato and their passion for gardens, they established the Flemming R. Mathiasen Garden with a cash gift and endowment at the College of Veterinary Medicine Garden to create and ensure its upkeep.

The couple’s generosity goes beyond the garden.

They used an estate gift to create the Prahinski Endowed Scholarship to support students within the Fostering Academics, Mentoring Excellence (FAME) program at MSU. FAME is a resource center for students who were in foster care, kinship care, have experienced homelessness or are otherwise independent.

The couple also used estate gifts to create the Red Lion Endowment at MSU’s Wharton Center for the Performing Arts and to support the Bea and Roy Mott Fund for the student food bank.

Through their generosity with these gifts and endowments, generations of people and pets are sure to find a welcoming and beautiful home at MSU.