First-class recreation centers in low-income neighborhoods — dozens of them, scattered around the nation. That was the vision of Joan Kroc, billionaire philanthropist and heiress to the McDonald’s fortune of her husband, Ray.
When she died in 2003, Joan Kroc stunned the Salvation Army when she left what amounted to $1.8 billion — roughly half her fortune —with instructions to carry out her wish for the centers. In today’s dollars, that is $2.9 billion.
And today, 20 years later, 26 grand, state-of-the-art Kroc centers have opened in places as varied as Ashland, Ohio; Guayama, Puerto Rico; and Quincy, Illinois. Salvation Army officials say 1.2 million people belong to Kroc fitness centers, and over 3 million people annually are served through a wide variety of other programs, including job training, theatrical performances, and afterschool care.
The Phoenix Kroc Center hosts a financial literacy course and filmmaking workshop. In Boston, a culinary arts program provides job training. Several nonprofits keep offices at the Kroc facility in Augusta, Georgia. In San Francisco, the center is attached to housing for veterans and for young people who have aged out of foster care.
The path to this point has not been easy for an organization whose hallmark is frugality — one accustomed to raising much of its money in small gifts from everyday donors. The Salvation Army didn’t solicit the Kroc windfall, and it certainly hadn’t planned to open and maintain dozens of lavish, world-class recreation facilities.
Kroc’s will specified that the group was to divide the money equally among its four U.S. territories. Half was to be earmarked for the construction of recreation centers, with the other half deposited into endowments to support them. None of the bequest was to be used for existing programs, nor was the Army to convert existing buildings.
The centers were to serve as “campuses of opportunity” where “no child should ever feel envy toward…
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