Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers
In 1998, Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's CEO Ray Kroc, donated $90 million to the Salvation Army to build a comprehensive community center in San Diego, California. Her wish was to create a center, supported in part by the community, where children and families would be exposed to different people, activities and arts that would otherwise be beyond their reach. Completed in 2002, the center sits on 12 acres (49,000 m2) and offers an ice arena, gymnasium, three pools, rock climbing walls, a performing arts theatre, an internet-based library, computer lab, and a school of visual and performing arts.
When Joan Kroc died in October 2003, she left $1.5 billion - much of her estate - to The Salvation Army, by far the largest charitable gift ever given to the Army, and the largest single gift given to any charity at one time. The initial disbursements of this bequest began in January 2005. The gift had by then grown to $1.8 billion and was split evenly among the four Army Territories - Central, East, South and West. The money was designated to build a series of state-of-the-art Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers nationwide patterned after the San Diego center.
By the end of 2009, the Army operated six centers across the country in Ashland, OH; Atlanta, GA; Coeur d'Alene, ID; Omaha, NE; Salem, OR; and San Francisco, CA. Seven more centers followed in 2010 in Dayton, OH; Grand Rapids, MI; Green Bay, WI; Kerrville, TX; Philadelphia, PA; and Quincy, IL. In 2011 centers opened in Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Greenville, SC; Memphis, TN; Phoenix, AZ; and Honolulu, HI. A date of January 28, 2012 has been set for the South Bend, IN location. Opening dates are to be determined for the final six sites in Augusta, GA; Biloxi, MS; Camden, NJ; Staten Island, NY; Puerto Rico and Norfolk, VA.
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