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. In San Francisco, the center is attached to housing for veterans and for young people who have aged out of foster care. Several nonprofits keep offices at the Kroc facility in Augusta, Georgia.

In Boston, a culinary arts program provides job training. The Phoenix Kroc Center hosts a financial literacy course and filmmaking workshop. 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. In today’s dollars, that is $2.9 billion.Īnd 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. 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. That was the vision of Joan Kroc, billionaire philanthropist and heiress to the McDonald’s fortune of her husband, Ray. By LISA NAPOLI of The Chronicle of Philanthropyįirst-class recreation centers in low-income neighborhoods - dozens of them, scattered around the nation.

The seeds 900 million people daily