Ito Shoji Co. Makes $10,000 Gift to Pitt-Bradford Chapel

Ito Shoji Co. Ltd. of Japan has made a $10,000 gift in honor of Harriett B. Wick to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford chapel project. Ito Shoji is Japan’s largest distributors of Zippo lighters and one of the largest worldwide distributors of Zippo products. The company, which innovated many ideas to promote the collectors’ market, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. As part of that celebration, company president Fumio Akasu is visiting Zippo Manufacturing Co. in Bradford this week.

“We were deeply grateful to Mr. Fumio Akasu when he made the gift for this all-important chapel project,” said Dr. Livingston Alexander, Pitt-Bradford president. “Not only does it show his strong affection for Harriett Wick, in whose honor the gift was made, but it also signals a strengthening of the longstanding relationship with Pitt-Bradford.”

In May, the university announced that it would build a chapel. At the same time, the university announced an anonymous $1 million gift for the chapel in honor of Wick, philanthropist and daughter of Zippo founder George G. Blaisdell.

University officials hope to break ground on the chapel this fall.

“This donation strengthens the ties between Pitt-Bradford, Zippo and Ito Shoji, showing how important our global connections are,” said Karen Niemic Buchheit, executive director of institutional advancement at Pitt-Bradford.

Ito Shoji’s name will appear on the serenity wall in the chapel.

This is not the first time Ito Shoji has given to Pitt-Bradford. In 1998, a $125,000 gift by Ito Shoji and its president, Tetsu Ito, established a fund to help Pitt-Bradford faculty and students visit and study at the Yokohama College of Commerce or elsewhere in Japan.

Pitt-Bradford and YCC have enjoyed a “sister college” relationship since 1997, with a group of Japanese students visiting each summer to study English. Ito established the endowment at the suggestion of his friend, Howard Fesenmyer, chairman of Pitt-Bradford’s Institutional Advancement Council.

“When Mr. Ito was here for the Zippo/Case Swap Meet (in 1997), he was inspired to see all the Japanese students here on campus as part of the YCC/Pitt-Bradford Summer Intensive English Program,” Fesenmyer explained. “He thought it was a wonderful thing. The scholarship is his way of saying ‘thank you’ to Bradford, Zippo and Pitt-Bradford for all they have done to cultivate friendships and working relationships over the years.”

(Photo of Fumio Akasu and Harriett Wick courtesy of Pitt-Bradford)