The Jamail Galveston Foundation has contributed $50,000 to help students at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston regain critically needed computer and study space in the Jamail Student Center that was damaged by Hurricane Ike.

Dr. David L. Callender, UTMB president, said he is grateful to the foundation for helping the university and its students recuperate from Hurricane Ike since it stormed ashore on Sept. 13, 2008. “The Jamail Galveston Foundation has stepped forward to enable UTMB and the Galveston community to continue healing from the storm,” Callender said. “The foundation’s generous gift will assist students as they work to resume their studies after the hurricane.”

Donald P. Stevens, vice president of the Jamail Galveston Foundation, said the organization’s trustees are pleased to know that the grant will immediately benefit UTMB’s hurricane recovery efforts.

The foundation was established by prominent Houston lawyer Joe Jamail and his late wife, Lee, to benefit the Galveston community. The Jamails’ legacy of giving continues through their children, who serve on the foundation’s board of directors.

The Jamails have made major contributions of their own to UTMB, including the Joseph D. and Lee Hage Jamail Fund for Burn Research and Education and the Lee Hage Jamail Student Center, the state’s first freestanding student center on a health center campus. The Jamail Center opened in 1996 to provide UTMB medical, nursing, allied health and graduate students with a place to study and socialize. The Jamails also have supported the university’s Department of Radiology’s Breast Imaging Program and the School of Nursing Scholarship Fund.

Before her death in 2007, Lee Jamail served on the UTMB Development Board, an organization whose members help create fund-raising strategies and act as the academic health center’s “ambassadors,” assisting in outreach efforts to alumni, patients and other supporters.