History

Virginia’s family settled in Merced in the 1850s, where her grandfather built a land legacy that spanned more than 15,000 acres across three Central California counties. Although Virginia left Merced when she was a young teen, she retained strong ties and pleasant memories of her hometown. Memories so enduring that, in her will, she entrusted her remaining 7,000-acre estate to the Merced County Board of Education, declaring that it be used to generate scholarships for students who attended high schools in the city of Merced. 

The terms of her will directed the Board of Education to allocate the estate's income for 20 years after her death and then up to 10 additional years thereafter. Since the land offered the opportunity to act as an attractor to the UC system, the VST Trustees elected not to dissolve the trust in the late 1980s. Instead, the trustees donated more than 2,000 acres of land for the campus site, with some remaining acreage dedicated to wildlife mitigation. This donation influenced the University of California regents' decision to select Merced as the home of their tenth university campus — UC Merced.

The development of the remaining 654 acres of VST land south of UC Merced will not only help sustain scholarships for generations of Merced County students, but also establish a University Community, which will create housing, parks and additional community amenities.