Brad Pitt Donates To Family Event Center

Brad Pitt and his brother Doug have generously donated $600,000 to Drury University in their childhood town of Springfield Missouri, to help the school’s O’Reilly Family Event Center.

The donation helped the school win a Gold Leadership award in Environmental Energy and Design (LEED), making it the first arena in the U.S. to land the eco-friendly title. The building uses low-flow water fixtures, holds a recycling area and has a solar reflective roof.

“This is the latest in a string of commitments to sustainability in our community,” says Todd Parnell, President of Drury University. “We are grateful to the Pitt family for helping us reach a higher level in environmental excellence.”

In recognition of the Pitt brothers’ donation, school officials have renamed the playing surface of the 3,100-seat arena after their father, it will now be known as the William A. Pitt Court.

Springfield is home to several LEED certified buildings, including the LEED Platinum Green Circle Shopping Center, the LEED Gold Discovery Center and a LEED Platinum Habitat for Humanity home designed and built by Drury architecture students and faculty.

LEED is an internationally recognized certification system that measures how well a building or community performs across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.