The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis has received a surprise $2.2 million bequest from former local teacher Steve Bilane, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Bilane, who died in January 2021, was a science teacher at John Burroughs School from 1964 to 1988. In 2001, he reached out to Scholarship Foundation executive director Faith Sandler to learn about the organization, which awards interest-free loans and grants to help students overcome financial barriers to higher education, and began giving modest donations annually. Following his death, Bilane’s trust department notified the Scholarship Foundation of the unrestricted $2.2 million bequest.

“There are people who endow buildings, but educators don’t think of the rec center,” Sandler told the Post-Dispatch. “They think of the learners and the learning inside the buildings.”