The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health honors the life and legacy of Tashia Morgridge, who passed away on Friday, Oct. 30 at the age of 93.
While much of her philanthropy took place quietly, her extraordinary generosity has touched the lives of countless patients, families, and care team members at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, the Stanford School of Medicine, and beyond. Tashia served on the board at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford from 2005 to 2008 and was a member of the Association of Auxiliaries for Children, a Bay Area group that supports Packard Children’s Hospital through volunteering, philanthropy, and advocacy.
Together with her husband John Morgridge, former CEO of Cisco, Tashia gave generously to Packard Children’s Hospital and the Stanford School of Medicine, often declining public recognition.
“I first met Tashia in 1988 through the Auxiliaries,” said Susan Packard Orr, a longtime Foundation board member. “As a special education teacher, Tashia was already passionate about the well-being of kids. Her involvement with our hospital was really an extension of her deep care for children, especially those in less fortunate circumstances.”
In the 1990s, the Morgridges provided early support for the hospital’s mobile health programs. Three decades later, the “Teen Van” continues to bring essential health care services to underserved young people throughout the Bay Area. Tashia and John were also instrumental to Stanford University’s charter school, the East Palo Alto Academy, and Ravenswood Reads, a literacy program in the same neighborhood.
Tashia was known for taking a long view.
“Philanthropy is not a short-term thing. If you’re going to accomplish significant change, it takes years, it doesn’t take months,” she once said. “So you have to focus and you have to hang in there.”
In 2008, the Morgridges established an endowment to support early-career pediatric specialists at Packard Children’s. Today, more than 90 fellows and scholars have benefited from their philanthropy.
“We envision Packard and Stanford attracting the best and the brightest to the cause of improving children’s health,” she wrote in a newsletter that same year.
Nearly 50 Morgridge fellows and scholars have remained at Stanford.
“When I walk the hospital hallways and research laboratories, I recognize countless faculty who launched their careers and stayed here thanks to the Morgridges,” said Mary Leonard, MD, MSCE, the Arline and Pete Harman Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine and the Adalyn Jay Physician in Chief at Packard Children’s Hospital. “This is the heart of Tashia and John’s legacy: investing in the people, discoveries, and care that make a difference for children and families.”
A Glorious Adventure
Tashia Morgridge, née Frankwurth, grew up in rural Wisconsin. She and John preferred to keep a quiet profile with their giving, often donating under the Tosa Foundation name, a nod to Wauwatosa High School near Milwaukee, where the sweethearts first met.
The couple’s journey moved steadily westward, first to Madison, where in 1955 John graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration and Tashia with a bachelor’s in education. Then more than 2,000 miles to Palo Alto, where John enrolled in Stanford Graduate School of Business, and later became CEO of Cisco Systems in 1988, taking the technology company public.
Tashia started her 50-year career as a special education teacher in Silicon Valley, and later she would earn a master’s degree in education from Lesley College.
They wrote of that promising beginning: “All our possessions fit into our 1950 Ford and all of our wealth fit into a back pants pocket. It was the start of a glorious adventure!”
In 2010, the Morgridges signed the Giving Pledge, joining philanthropists like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in vowing to donate the majority of their income in their lifetimes. In truth, they were already giving away more than half by then.
“Philanthropy’s really had an enormous impact on both of our lives because we are active people,” Tashia said.
In their 60s, the Morgridges biked 4,400 miles across the United States and in their 70s, they hiked the Long Trail in the Green Mountains of Vermont—77 mountains in 30 days. Their trail name was “The Old People,” given to them by their grandson.
“Neither one of us would do very well as retired folks reading on the couch or playing golf or traveling the world. It just wouldn’t work for us,” Tashia said.
Tashia and John were married for 71 years, and lived a life of adventure with their son, daughter, six grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by their eldest son, Peter.