The College of the Canyons culinary program is all about giving the students driven by initiative exactly what they need to succeed as working chefs, bakers and sommeliers.
That’s according to Gary Cusumano, whose $1 million donation to the college’s Institute for Culinary Education, or iCUE — made in honor of his wife Diana Cusumano, who led the fundraising campaign that paid for the iCUE facility — was the single largest donation the college’s foundation had ever received.
He made that donation after his wife’s death in April 2025.
The college celebrated that donation Thursday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony unveiling the new names on the iCUE’s entry sign: The Diana and Gary Cusumano Culinary Arts Building.
Dozens of friends of the Cusumanos packed tables behind the building’s glassy front to eat a menu of appetizers prepared by the culinary program’s catering class, as well as fudge bar cookie cakes made by the chocolates class – from Diana’s personal recipe.
“If you take the time and effort to go through the program, and we can be of a little help to cheer you to get there, it’s outstanding,” Gary said during the ceremony Thursday. “And then it’s the student, once you graduate, (that’s) got to have the driving initiative. And that’s the part that we’re always focused on.”
Culinary students in white coats were hard at work Thursday, quickly moving in and out of the dining and cooking areas to serve diners at the institute that sits on the southern edge of COC’s Valencia campus.
Those who knew Diana said she was a fierce advocate for the facility to be built. The building was finished in 2015.
Cindy Schwanke, the department chair for the college’s culinary arts and wine program, said Diana’s passion for the college’s culinary program came from her lifelong love of baking.
“She’s a baker herself, and so she’s been a baker all her life, and a home baker. And everybody in the community knows that Diana makes some really great stuff, so that was her passion,” Schwanke said. “That’s how her and I connected, because I’m a pastry chef by trade, so her and I really connected.”
As the head of the iCUE facility fund, Schwanke said Diana Cusumano helped raise over $8 million for its construction. That building now houses, alongside culinary education, programs for wine studies, baking and pastry cooking, and hospitality.
Schwanke said Diana was both exceptionally generous and firm in her resolve when something needed doing: Diana had exacting specifications for the brochure sent out to solicit donations for the building, for example.
“She was very specific on things, so I appreciated it. When she needed to be, she was a little tough,” Schwanke said. “She was just a kind person and always willing to help and jump in.”
The program now takes in about 200 students a year, said COC Superintendent-President Jasmine Ruys, and the results have already paid for themselves. A former student of the program, Makena Lopez, told ribbon-cutting attendees Thursday that the program had changed her life.
Lopez graduated from the program with an associate’s degree in culinary arts, along with a certification in baking and wine studies, in 2023.
“Over the past three years, I’ve been able to work with all these amazing people side by side, and I get to see their own unique style, their learning … and their guidance every single day,” Lopez said. “I cannot thank this program enough and everything that (it) has given to me, I’m also so deeply grateful for the Cusumano family, not only for helping create this beautiful space, but for their generosity.”
As of Thursday, Lopez said, she’s now a teacher at the iCUE.
It’s expected that that the Cusumanos’ $1 million donation will go to paying to keep the iCUE’s equipment up to date, as well as for scholarships that’ll go directly to students, Ruys said.
“Let’s really get the money in the students’ hands, so that they can clear the boundaries that they need to be able to continue their education,” she said.
Ruys said that the building’s naming ceremony Thursday was a testament to that catalyzing force the Cusumanos have been for the students in the culinary program – to give them the necessary stepping stone.
“(Diana) and Gary have dedicated so much to students they cared so much, not only for students being able to get their degrees and be it, but to find their passion, like he said, find their passion, but then use that drive and innovation to get going and move yourself forward,” Ruys said “I think this speaks to their legacy of being able to do that.”
