Generosity and inspiration overflowed at Thursday night’s Rend Lake College Foundation Annual Dinner.  With two sizeable donations on the books and a rousing speech from the Alumnus of the Year, RLC donors, faculty, staff, and guests left with a feeling of optimism and hope.  Leading the way in generosity was the 2014 Alumnus of the Year, Jim Mounier and his wife Carole, who after a year of closely following the college, decided to give the largest donation the Foundation has ever received.  Already totaling a value of seven-figures and growing, the Jim and Carole Mounier Legacy Society was announced by Foundation CEO Shawna Bullard.  She later explained, “The Jim and Carole Mounier Legacy Society is a bequest of their property to the Foundation.  The Mouniers have chosen the Foundation as beneficiaries in their estate, which means when they pass away, the money they’ve worked for will continue to work for our students through their gift.”  Upon receiving special recognition for the Legacy Society, Mounier, a 1972 graduate of RLC, said he’s proud to be able to give back to the place he said changed everything.  Mounier is currently the Senior Vice President at Merrill Lynch in Rockford.  A native of Linton, Indiana, he relocated to Southern Illinois and completed his senior year at Mount Vernon Township High School in 1970.  At RLC, Mounier focused on a mathematics degree before transferring to Illinois State University.  The other sizeable donation to the school was an anonymous donation specifically for the RLC Foundation Children’s Center in the amount of $195,000.  Though the donor wishes to remain anonymous right now, Foundation CEO Shawna Bullard said the children’s library in the new addition will likely be named after her.  Groundbreaking on the addition is expected to begin in February or March and students will be using the facility by the Fall of 2016.  Upon hearing and studying about the Children’s Center addition, the donor decided to give back to educating young people.  This year’s donation will be added to last year’s $100,000 donation from Marjorie Farrar to completely fund the project, which will be a gross motor room to give students the chance to play indoors and have their own library.  Farrar was one of the catalysts of the Children’s Center and made the lead donation of $100,000 in 1995 to start the process of building.