Rockford, Illinois raised me. My friends, my family, my education, my sports- the first 18 years of my life, and the foundation they gave me, are credited to that city. I've written about my childhood elsewhere on this site, and I wouldn't trade it for anyone's. But the older I've gotten, the more I've come to understand that my version of growing up in Rockford was the lucky one.
In 2019, I walked into Auburn High School alongside 450 other students. In 2023, when I graduated, just 220 walked. A few of the missing students transferred schools, some got trade jobs, but for most- their life simply stopped. No education, no source of income. Many of these students ended up on the wrong side of violence or crimes. Several, I personally knew. No teenager deserves that outcome; especially, in a country as prosperous as the United States.
This reality both confused and deeply upset me. And so, at the urging of my older cousin & mentor, Keith Kruchten, I began digging into it. Across my senior year of high school and my freshman year at USC, I spent 18 months researching my city, its socioeconomic dynamics, and how they relate to its public education system. I went in curious. I came out convinced. The data pointed at the same root over and over: a severe lack of early childhood education resources, compounding through every grade that follows, feeding directly into the city's poverty trap.
Education, and the support infrastructure around it, is the engine of social mobility. A strong education lets you rise above the circumstances you're born into. A weak one keeps you trapped in them. It's a fact I've personally experienced. So much of my success at a young age, I can credit directly to the education I've been fortunate enough to receive. I'm far from the first person to understand this truth, as well as the issues in my hometown. Rockford Promise has been doing transformative work for years, and former Mayor Tom McNamara's administration moved real mountains. Rockford's education outcomes are getting better, dramatically better, but there is much work to be done.
I believe it is my duty to contribute to this mission. I benefited from a great education, and I know exactly what it did for my life. The way I see it, that makes it my responsibility to hand the same opportunity to as many people from my hometown as I can.
My Mission Today
I'm starting small, but I'm starting now. I've committed to contributing a portion of my monthly income to funding local scholarships. The first of these scholarships will be a $2,500 grant awarded to an exemplary graduate of Auburn High School who comes from a disadvantaged background. The first recipient will be from the Class of 2027, and I hope to greatly expand the number and size of scholarships awarded as my own income continues to compound.
Additionally, in the coming months I'll be officially registering The Kruchten Foundation as a nonprofit organization. It is the institution under which I'll carry out my long term goal of transforming the education outcomes of Rockford's youth.
My Long Term Vision
So what does that transformation actually look like? Rockford has never lacked talented kids. What many of them lack is everything around the talent: stable evenings, steady meals, summers that build instead of erode, and adults who've walked the path. A kid can have a great school and still lose to the other 18 hours of the day. Disadvantage works as a system, so the answer has to work as one too.
The dream I've carried since those 18 months of research is a school in Rockford where nothing is missing. Kids would arrive at age 3, before any gap has a chance to open, and stay with the same school, the same adults, and the same expectations until they graduate at 18. Those who need to could live on campus when home is the hard part, with a bed, a quiet place to study, and caring adults around in the evenings. Every student would eat three good meals a day, every day of the year. The education itself would be the kind wealthy families assemble piece by piece: elite academics alongside arts, athletics, travel, music, and debate, all built in from day one.
My dream is to build and fund this institution myself. Large enough to support a cohort of 100 students per grade: a total student body of 1,500. It would be free, forever. Funded by a private endowment instead of tuition, which keeps the promise permanent no matter what the economy or politics of the moment look like. This isn't a theory. The Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania has run on exactly this model for more than a century: endowed, tuition-free, residential, and still changing lives every year.
The cost to do this? Roughly $2.5 billion.
Will I get there? I don't know.
Will I try? Absolutely- with everything I have.
Ultimately my life goal is a simple one: provide every child raised in Rockford the same opportunities I had growing up. And in doing so, positively transform lives in a city that deeply deserves it.