What was expected to be a typical speech turned into one that called for a round of applause: A $1.5 million donation would be made to the Florida Atlantic University College of Nursing by local attorney Mark Swillinger in honor of his late wife, Marilyn.
The announcement came during FAU President Adam Hasner’s speech at the 15th annual White Coats-4-Care reception at The Addison, an event that supports FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine.
Not only is it a hefty amount, but the donation will create a hospice and palliative care program in FAU’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing. Swillinger says he was inspired after seeing the attentive care his wife received in 2023, when she died from lung cancer.
“The nurses were there 24 hours a day,” he says. “They brought medication from West Palm Beach every day, they brought in a chaplain, gave her last rites, they brought in a social worker for me, they brought in a musician, a guitarist to serenade her in her final days.
“I just had to repay the community and [nonprofit hospice organization] Trustbridge for all they did in guiding Marilyn to her final resting place and also quite frankly trying to make the final moments, the final days as easy as possible for me, which was really an impossibility.”
Marilyn was known for her philanthropy and turning any charity event she attended into a red carpet fashion show. She was the founder and CEO of Facets, Inc. and was involved in a number of area nonprofits, including Friends of the Conservatory of Music at Lynn University, Impact 100, The Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center, The Wick Theatre & Museum Club, FAU’s Theatre Lab, the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters, Lynn College of Nursing at FAU, Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Boca Raton Museum of Art; the George Snow Foundation, and many more.
“The gift is huge for us, it’s really going to allow us to be the first in the state to offer a program like this, specifically focusing on hospice and palliative care nursing,” says Dr. Cameron Duncan, the dean of the FAU College of Nursing. “It certainly takes a special person, and it’s not for everyone, but those nurses that really commit to this really have to understand the relationships that they have with the individual who is perhaps suffering from a chronic disease or at the end of their life and also for their family members.”
The Swillingers met in 1998 “when ‘Shakespeare in Love’ was the movie of the year,” Swillinger says, “and she made my life.”
“It’s the only way I can say thank you to her and thank you to the community for everything she had done for us and everything the community has done for us.”
