Noble Blood - Chaotic Philanthropy: Saint Joan of the Golden Arches [from Very Special Episodes]

Episode Date: July 5, 2026

Thanks to her McDonald’s fortune, Joan Kroc was one of the world’s wealthiest people. And she was determined to die nearly broke. * Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason EnglishWritten by Jake RossenSenior Producer is Josh FisherEditing and Sound Design by Chris ChildsAdditional Editing by Mary DooeMixing and Mastering by Josh FisherOriginal Music by Elise McCoyShow Logo by Lucy QuintanillaExecutive Producer is Jason English Special thanks to our guests Lisa Napoli, Dick Starmann, and Stephanie Bergsma. Go check out Lisa's excellent book Ray & Joan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Joy 101 with Hoda Kotopi is presented by CVS. American soccer has exploded. The knockout rounds are here. The U.S. won their group, and now every match is winner go home. I'm Tad Ramos. And I'm Tom Boger. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines. Discuss the tactics that actually decide matches.

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Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison, or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's, it can. where that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Disgraceland on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be, and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's 1999. A construction site in San Diego. Plumes of dirt and fuel exhaust hang in the air. A piece of heavy-duty equipment is busy scooping soil. That's not an unusual site in any major city. What is unusual is the driver of the bulldozer, A prim, well-quafed senior citizen sporting a sharp navy blue blazer and expensive-looking jewelry. Despite looking more like Anne Landers than Bob the Builder, she scoops up heaps of soil, then gives a thumbs up to the assembled photographers.

What some people don't know is that this woman is the sole reason work is about to begin on a massive community. Center for the city, one that promises to transform the landscape for underprivileged families. The price tag? A whopping $93 million. The woman's name is Joan Crock, and this community center is far from her only philanthropic endeavor. She's spent the past three decades doling out vast sums of money to causes she deems worthy. She doesn't rely on charitable boards or trusts that trickle money out. Jones' approach is simple. If she thinks you or your organization need help, she'll write you a check. A big check. Jones' generosity has been facilitated by one of the great business success stories in modern American history. Her coffers have been filled by

Egg McMuffins, and McNuggets, and Big Macs. Thanks to McDonald's, Joan is one of the world's wealthiest people, and she's determined to die nearly broke. This is how she did it. Welcome to very special episodes, an I-Heart Original podcast. I'm your host, Dana Schwartz, and this is St. Joan of the Golden Arches. Welcome back to very special episodes. I'm Jason. She's Dana. Hey, hey. He's Zarin. Yo! So look, chaotic philanthropy is maybe my favorite concept. So I'm really excited to spend some time in this world with Joan and her many billions of dollars.

Who doesn't love a joyful look at philanthropy? Yeah. Honestly, it's kind of the dream is to inherit millions and then billions of dollars and just be able to give that money to anyone you think deserves that money. I think you'd be really good at that, actually, Dana. I think you would be an excellent heiress. I read the news. There are definitely causes and places that I'm like, they could use money. Yeah, right? We just need the money. If someone wants to donate the money to us and then we can dole it out,

we will happily recirculate. I'm kind of shocked. This is our first McDonald's episode. Off the top of my head, we could have done the Donald's Monopoly scam. Oh, I love that. They were cheating it for years. Yeah, that was a great dog. Grimmis, I think we could spend some time

just all things grimace and the gritty origin. The whole family history? Yeah. Do you guys know that my sister works for McDonald's? No. Yeah, my sister's in McDonald's corporate in Chicago. Does your sister have any like a particular McDonald's lore

that she's learned since working there? No, but maybe I need to ask her. Right? Maybe there's an episode in there. Maybe she can give us like kind of pry open the door. I'll ask. Next time I'm back home. I'll ask for a tour.

I remember there was a guy, I think, in the Philippines who had managed to collect every happy meal toy ever going back to the beginning. That feels like a field trip episode. Amazing. You can't drive more than a few miles almost anywhere in the U.S. without passing a McDonald's. Or, as the company itself puts it, the closest McDonald's is never far. The hamburger chain has nearly 14,000 locations domestically and, double that internationally. Is it healthy? Not especially. Is it cheap? Well, not like it used to be. A large fry will set you back about five bucks these days. But it is quick and it's predictable.

The burger you like in Des Moines will be the same in Los Angeles or Philadelphia or Anchorage. That consistency was the work of a man named Ray Kroc. Another thing we forget in great business stories is that a lot of everything in life is about timing. That's Lisa Napoli, author of Ray and Joan, a biography of the man who made McDonald's a cultural and gastronomic sensation and the woman he loved. And this was a moment in time

when the nation was ripe for this kind of eating. Ray didn't start McDonald's. The business began as a fast food restaurant, concept run by Richard and Maurice McDonald on the West Coast beginning in the 1940s. At that time, Ray was a restaurant supply salesman. When the McDonald's brothers placed an order for eight milkshake machines, Ray got curious. Few places could funnel out orders that quickly. Who needed eight milkshake machines?

He checked them out. He liked what he saw. an efficient procession of hamburgers, fries, and shakes, going out the door in a process resembling a conveyor belt. He partnered with the brothers to take their food and their assembly line and franchise it. Over the next several years, Ray erected the golden arches in multiple cities and states. He eventually bought out the McDonald brothers. And when the company finally went public,

Ray became a millionaire many, many times over, while the siblings made a comparatively puny $2.7 million. That led to a belief that Ray somehow tricked the brothers into selling. Lisa argues that's too simplistic. The idea that he screwed them is ridiculous, and I always say the correlate of that is, my parents sold a house in Brooklyn, New York, in the 80s for a really, good sum of money that's now worth four times as much. It's not like they got screwed. They sold

out at a particular moment in time for what was a good price then. Now in total control of the business, Ray is careful about choosing franchisees. He wants to make sure they can execute the McDonald's philosophy of hot fast food at scale. So in those days, he'd often travel to meet prospect. He'd often travel to meet prospective partners in person. Get a feel for them. Make sure they wouldn't mess with Ray's perfectionist tendencies. It was during one of those trips to St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1957, that he first meets Joan. Joan was a beautiful younger woman playing piano, and Ray had made a living early on in his life as a pianist himself. And so he was drawn to the piano, begin with and drawn to this beautiful woman playing piano.

The daughter of a railroad worker, Joan Mansfield grew up to be a music teacher. When Ray meets her, Joan happens to be an entertainer at one of the prospective franchisees restaurants, playing for the benefit of customers. Both are smitten, despite Joan being 28 and Ray in his mid-50s. But there's a problem. Well, a couple of problems. Joan was married with a young kid at that point, and Ray was much older with a faltering marriage.

For now, whatever chemistry stirred between them has to be ignored. But a few years later, the two meet up again. This time, both are divorced. Well, Ray was about to be. And so in 1969, Ray and Joan get married. By this point, Ray is a wash in hamburger dividends. And in a roundabout way, so is Joan. Her husband had become a McDonald's franchisee and had been a success,

thanks in large part to Joan herself, who was a kind of silent partner in the venture. Women weren't allowed to work in McDonald's at that point. Many of the people who were hired in the early McDonald's were ex-military. They were young men, usually, and they were in uniform and very neat and tidy, and women were just not allowed. And so when a woman was involved with a McDonald's in those early days, it was usually because of a husband or they were a silent partner in the background. Weird, yes, but this wasn't unusual.

Women weren't allowed to work in a lot of places. It wasn't just McDonald's. Women and actually at that time weren't allowed to have credit cards in their name, not that everybody had credit cards, but they weren't allowed to have bank accounts in their own name. They weren't allowed to own real estate in their own name. Marriage to a McDonald's franchisee was vastly different than life with the largest shareholder in the company and miles beyond Jones' childhood. She had grown up during the Depression of the 1930s, seeing firsthand the struggle and toil that can result from having empty pockets. Her father often out of work. Joan did not grow up rich. In fact, it was quite the opposite. And she married a man who also was not rich the first time. And so

she was not to the manner born. In fact, she had a very scrappy upbringing in St. Paul, Minnesota. When she was married, she had to work several jobs, which wasn't typical for women necessarily back then, in order to help the family make ends meet. After the couple moves from Chicago to San Diego in the 1970s, Ray winds up buying the San Diego Padres baseball team. A glimpse into Ray's personality can be found during one of their early home games. Ray grabbed the public address system to ensure. insult their disappointing performance.

He said he had never seen, quote, such stupid ball playing in his life. Joan, meanwhile, is grappling with life as Mrs. McDonald's, a nickname she finds reductive. She flirts with life as a socialite, as well as life as a board member on Ray's own charitable foundation. But Ray's giving is sometimes controversial, as in the time he donated to Richard Nixon's presidential campaign.

He received criticism for doing it to try and ensure the minimum wage paid to fast food workers remained capped. Playing politics isn't Jones' game. There are attempts to get her involved in running a chain of her own, a series of pet hotels, but the idea never makes it past the planning stages. Joan also realizes she has no patience for what she calls dumb boards. When you sit on a board, she said, that's just it. You sit and you're bored. She realized she didn't want to be what we would, you know,

uncharitably call a trophy wife, which is spending the money of the wealthy man she had just married. That's when she started tipping into the philanthropy world. Instead, Joan takes up a different cause. Alcoholism. In 1974, she begins using Ray's foundation to back a program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, the support group for those struggling with substance abuse. She names it Operation Cork, which is Croc, spelled backwards. What Joan did was she realized, as anybody who's living with an alcoholic or an addict, will tell you you have to get help for yourself. And so she started to start. getting involved with other people who were on this path of recognizing, you know, that this is

a scourge, a societal scourge, and starting to figure out ways to address it, both for themselves, how to live with somebody who's got a problem that can't be fixed, and also how to message this out to the world and make it more socially acceptable to discuss it. Operation Cork partners with Dartmouth and funds educational programs for physicians who wouldn't normally receive training about alcohol issues in patients. Now when you go to the doctor, the first thing they ask you is, how much do you drink? Do you do drugs? But back then, that did not happen. And so she worked with a medical school to help. I mean, she didn't develop the curriculum. She worked with experts about how to teach young doctors to identify potential problems among their patients. Talking about alcohol problems or even acknowledging it could be a problem was unusual for the era.

It was swept under the rug. But Joan readily speaks about the cause and her work in the space, destigmatizing it. When pressed for details on why the cause is so. important to her, Joan usually demures. She herself had never had a drinking problem. She had simply grown tired of seeing alcoholics not getting the treatment they needed. What she doesn't say is that the issue is extremely personal. Ray has a drinking problem. That rant on the Padres loudspeaker? Probably alcohol-induced, though Ray denied it. But what? What's certain is that his drinking causes fractures in their marriage,

with Joan at one point seeking separation and even filing for a restraining order. They reconcile, but Ray is resistant to seeking treatment. It was as though Jones' attempt to normalize the need for help was an indirect message to Ray, who finally agrees to enter a program in 1979. Ray and Joan remain married up until Ray's death from heart failure at the age of 81 in 1984. His estate, which is valued at over $500 million, is left to Joan. And while she's obviously heartbroken, there is purpose in her life. The money that had previously been under the care of Ray and his foundation is free.

And so is Joan. free to pursue her philanthropic sprint through causes large and small. But not everyone would be happy about that. Listen. And you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage. And breathtaking triumph. In 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The knockout stage. Every match, every moment. Listen on TSN radio. On the road to the July 19th final. 2026 FIFA World Cup. Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeartRadio. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations. with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer,

and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all. have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney. It's 1980. You're an ex-beetal, and you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons

right there alongside Yakuza gangsters and for a ridiculous charge. Or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of. Who is the artist Lady Gaga is being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time, Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer? The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy.

Listen to Discrace Land on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1984, the same year Ray passed, an unimaginable tragedy takes place in the town of San Yusidro, California. A man named James Hubertie, arms, himself and storms a McDonald's location, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others. At the time, it's the deadliest mass shooting event in U.S. history. McDonald's dispatches Dick Starman to the city. Dick is the senior vice president of communications worldwide. His presence in San Diego means getting to know Joan Croc better. Here's Dick. So I went to over how he's house and we had a nice conversation. I had gotten to know her a little bit that summer because I was in

San Diego. I had interacted with her a few times. Anyway, she said to me, would you consider working with me like you worked with Ray over the years? Dick agrees, moonlighting in a sense for Joan while maintaining his position at McDonald's, the Tom Hagan to her Michael Corleone, a consigliary. I kind of became, I'm going to say, her advisor, maybe senior advisor on a lot of things that she got involved in with her life, and especially her philanthropy. The San Ysidro shooting prompts Joan to donate $100,000 to families of victims. According to Dick, Joan acted even more quickly than McDonald's itself. She started the San Yacidro Survivors Fund, and I believe she put $100,000 into it to start it. We at McDonald's, because it was right after this crisis that had happened in San Ysedro in the McDonald's restaurant,

we stood back and said, why didn't we think of that? It was a great idea. And McDonald's, within a few hours, contributed a million dollars to that fund. This is one of the earliest examples of Jones' unconventional approach to giving. She doesn't act foolishly, but she does act quickly. Not long after, Joan attends a symposium in San Diego relating to nuclear de-escalation. It's a fraught time for international superpowers with plenty of saber-rattling. Joan walks away with concerns about the potential for nuclear disaster, but she has a weapon of her own, her checkbook.

Almost immediately, Joan begins writing checks to fund. and anti-nuclear advocacy groups and to back distribution of anti-nuclear literature. She takes out full-page ads in major newspapers decrying the nuclear climate and arguing for disarmament.

This doesn't come without controversy. Joan is still perceived by some as the idle rich, a flush widow poking her nose into world affairs without qualifications. One editorial columnist writes that, since the Pentagon doesn't make McNuggets, Joan Crock shouldn't be entitled to an opinion about nuclear warfare. Others write in besieging her to stick her anti-war rhetoric in her, quote, crazy, crummy ear.

It didn't help that Ray had been a Republican, and thus often on the other side of the aisle as Joan. Joan, however, is not dissuaded. She continues to back the anti-nuclear sentiment. She's impressed by Father Theodore Hesberg, the president of Notre Dame, who's looking to open a hub for peace at the university. She asked Father Hesberg what he needed, and he said he needed a building. If he was going to have a peace program or a peace institute, he needed a building to house it in.

And she looked at him and she said, I don't do buildings. And he said, well, he said, you asked me what I needed, and that's what I need. In 1986, she donates $6 million to Notre Dame to establish the Crock Institute for International Peace Studies. Years later, at the University of San Diego, another major Crock gift helps create the Joan B. Croc Institute for Peace and Justice, which launches in 2001. The name part took some convincing. One tenant of Joan's philanthropy is that it is largely done behind the scenes. She shies away from public proclamations of her generosity.

Joan had other rules, too. It was three things. It was like a three-legged stool. There was the person, there was an organization, and there was a cause, what they wanted to do. You know, that was important to her. And over the years, were, you know, big and small.

I mean, big, obviously, you know, in the tens of millions of dollars, especially in her estate, but also small in the hundreds of thousands sometimes. It was, it just depended upon the organization, the people, you know, the organization's size and how she felt about it. But if she avoids direct solicitations, how does she decide where the Mick Money goes? Joan is a voracious news junkie. She reads newspapers, watches television, listens to the radio, and talks current events with friends. She had televisions everywhere, and she, of course, the computer age was coming on, especially in the 90s. And she was what I called a news nut.

She loved listening to the news and knowing what was going on in the world. Oftentimes, she'd hear something or see something. And if it interested her to a point where she wanted to find out more about it, She'd ask me to check it out. Joan reads a story about a teacher trying to help a student in Tennessee confront prejudices over having AIDS, which was still heavily stigmatized. She's moved to write a check to their school district for $230,000. The sum helps balance their annual budget and prevents staff layoffs, including the teacher.

A doctor researching AIDS is in a hotel room when a check arrives from Joan for $1 million. A homeless shelter struggling for funds soon receives $800,000. Some kind words from children's television host Fred Rogers sparks a friendship as well as donations to PBS. There's no gathering of advisors, no interviews, no oversized checks, presented on behalf of television cameras, it's whatever feels right. You know, sometimes I'd give her a recommendation and she'd listen to me and she'd go,

okay, and then she'd do exactly the opposite, which was fine. It was, you know, I used to tell her it was her money. Joan would describe her approach as a, quote, maverick salvationist, one born, she said, of her woman's intuition. When Joan sees the San Diego Zoo is struggling financially, she writes a check for $3.3 million. Her personal connection,

an injured hummingbird that lands in her yard, which she has transported to the zoo via private chauffeur for treatment. When the bird makes a full recovery, she writes another check, this time for $100,000 to fund their hummingbird enclosure. They love to work with Joan Crack, and she loved working with the zoo people. They used to even, every once in a while, bring an exotic animal up to her home to show her. Again, she just, she loved the zoo because of what they did and their care and love for animals, which she had.

Obstacles, Joan didn't believe in them. When she decides to repurpose a sprawling ranch once occupied by Hern Re in Santer-Nez, California, as a getaway camp for sick children, neighbors lodge complaints. So Joan sells the ranch and donates the proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House, a charitable arm of the company. Joan isn't without a sense of humor either. After she sees a story about a McDonald's customer who was denied extra pickles on his burger,

she sends him a five-gallon jar with thousands of pickle slices. She had fun while she was giving away money, but she also had. A little bit of the devil in her in a good way. She loved to surprise people. She liked the shack people in a positive way, most of the time to help them, obviously. Getting Joan's attention could happen anywhere. She was once on a plane with a doctor named Doris Howell. The two struck up a conversation in which the doctor explained she was looking to open a hospice.

Joan got back in touch with her, offering $18 million for the project, the first. freestanding hospice in San Diego, countless people with terminal diagnoses spent their remaining time there, including a man named Alan Bergsmah. Before his death, Bergsma wrote to Joan to thank her. Seven days before he died, he wrote her this note, telling her how grateful he was to be there. It was one of the most miserable times of his entire life, but he was pleasantly surprised at how caring and lovely it was. That's Stephanie Bergsmaw, Alan's wife at the time. And they had a mailbox at the hospice, and he put his note to her in the mailbox.

So about a day later, she called and asked to speak to him, and he wasn't in any condition to do that, so she spoke to me. I mean, I was sitting in the waiting room, and we talked briefly, and after that, I started having lunch with her. Joan and Stephanie become fast friends. Stephanie is executive director of KPBS, the local San Diego PBS affiliate. Joan, Ever the NewsHound, believes public information is extremely valuable. So the checks start coming to the station.

Not because Stephanie asks, but because she doesn't. Many years ago, I had lunch with the woman who was then running her foundation. which subsequently was disbanded. And she said to me, you can never ask her for money. That's the kiss of death. So we never asked for money. In 1997, Joan sees another opportunity to help. Devastating floods ravage grand forks in North Dakota,

displacing thousands of families. The area is close to where she once lived with her first husband, Her donation of $15 million means each family receives about $2,000 while the community rebuilds. Joan's only disappointment is that she's unable to do it anonymously. An intrepid reporter makes note of her private plane flying in and reveals her identity. But Joan refuses to accept a plaque bearing her name and made in her honor. Bear in mind, Jones' wealth correlates. with the success of McDonald's. As their stock rises, so does hers. By the end of the 1990s,

Joan's fortune is in the billions. It's a massive sum and one that Joan is not looking to keep, but she's about to get news that will force her to make quick decisions on what to do with it all. Listen, and you're there. for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage. And breathtaking triumph. In 2026 FIFA World Cup. The knockout stage.

Every match. Every moment. Listen on TSN Radio. Join the globe. On the road to the July 19th final. 2026 FIFA World Cup. Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeart Radio.

Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy, 101 with Hoda Kotbby. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer.

and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jake Brennan. And on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in one of the world's most notorious prisons. Imagine that. You're Paul McCartney.

It's 1980. You're an ex-Beedle. And you're doing time in one of Japan's worst prisons right there alongside Yakuza gangsters. and for a ridiculous charge. Or the bizarre crime, Lady Gaga, is accused them. Who is the artist Lady Gaga as being accused of doing the unthinkable to after allegedly stealing her music in style to become famous? And what about that time, Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped a serial killer?

The man who had given her that ride she barely escaped from was Ted Bundy. Listen to Disgraceland on the I-Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1997, Joan and her friend, former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor, take a drive through an underprivileged area of the city while being escorted by the chief of police. The blight is considerable. This isn't the San Diego someone with Joan's wealth typically sees. Here's Lisa Napoli again.

She saw these kids playing in the street and thought, It would be so great if we could start a recreation center for kids to go to. So she makes a decision, one that will reverberate for decades to come. Joan donates $93 million to the Salvation Army for a sprawling 195,000 square foot community center in San Diego. The idea itself is, like many of Joan's decisions, slightly out of left field. She's not a churchgoer,

while the Salvation Army makes faith a core tenet of their activities. But Joan believes in the Army for a good reason. As a kid, she had seen the organization render aid to people, and she believes they have one key asset. They operate

economically, with none of the waste found in other charitable organizations. As the Salvation Army begins to break ground on the rec center, which will come to be known as the Kroc Center, Joan gets some news. One of the few people she confides in is Dick Starman. She went to the doctor just for a quick MRI, and, you know, she got this terrible news that she

had glioblastoma, and she had a short time to live. She had, you know, was given like three, four months to live because of the aggressive growth of apparently those tumors in the head. Time is beginning to run short. Suddenly, questions of what to do with her fortune, which she's been dealing with on a case-by-case basis, are taking on a new urgency. She said, I got a lot of work to do,

and we've got a short time to do it. And so I jumped on a plane and went to San Diego, and I was there about 15 or 16 trips that summer back and forth because we had a lot of business to do, and she had a pretty good idea what her estate plan looked like, but she wanted to finalize things and make sure everything was right. Patience, Never Jones' virtue, has become a rare commodity. Because of her friendship with Stephanie Bergsmah and her affection for public radio,

she reaches out to PBS to discuss the possibility of a massive, massive donation, but PBS fumbles it. Well, the story is that someone in her organization, was supposed to contact PBS and couldn't get a live person on the phone that got recordings. And after a day or two of getting recordings and not being able to get through to somebody,

apparently she said to hell with it. And that was it. As a result, no one from PBS gets an invite to a party held at her house in 2003. Unbeknownst to the attendees, many are going to be the beneficiaries of Jones' wealth. It's as though she wants to look them in the eyes one last time. To get one more jolt of excitement from knowing

her money is going to make someone's life better. Here's Lisa Napoli. They all had been summoned because she cared about them and what they would find out basically just several months later is that they'd been summoned because they were going to be the recipients of her last wishes. In 2003, despite her illness, Joan is able to tour the Croc Center in San Diego in a wheelchair, hoping her sunglasses will help preserve some of the anonymity she prefers. I mean, when she was dying of glioblastoma, of brain cancer,

the last few months of her life, she would go down to the, Ray and Joan Crock Community Center in San Diego, and she'd sit in a wheelchair and kind of have sunglasses on so nobody'd recognize her, and she'd sit and watch the children and adults ice skate in the ice rink. I mean, she loved being there and seeing people in the community enjoy it. And, of course, it turned out to be a riproaring success in terms of people in the community being welcome there. One of the requirements that she had was that nobody would ever be denied admission to it and that it was for the community. Just a few weeks later, on October 12, 2003, Joan Croc dies at the age of 75.

Tributes about her philanthropy come pouring in, especially in her native San Diego. But the actual extent of her generosity isn't yet fully understood. After Joan's death, Dick Starman begins making calls. Among the first is two National Public Radio and Kevin Close, the NPR president whom Joan had befriended. After Mrs. Crack passed away, I called him about three days later. I told him, I said, Kevin, get out of pencil and paper. He did, and I said, write these numbers down. And I said, two, three.

And then I said, let's start adding zeros. Anyway, we added zeros until we got to $23 million. And then I told them, I said, just what the heck, add another zero. In the end, NPR receives well over $200 million for operating expenses, roughly twice their annual operating budget. It's funding and interest that pays for an expanding news staff and even employee bonuses. KPBS, the San Diego PBS affiliate, which Stephanie Bergsma ran for decades, receives another $5 million.

But NPR isn't the biggest beneficiary of Jones' estate. The San Diego Croc Center was a kind of proof of concept. Once it was open and Joan realized the Salvation Army could realize her ambitions, one of her final wishes was for the group to open dozens of crock centers in communities around the country. To do that, Joan leaves the army what is at the time the largest single gift ever given to a charity, $1.5 billion, almost her entire cheeseburger-fueled fortune for construction costs and endowments. But it wasn't all good news.

You know, the Salvation Army was not set up to build recreation centers all around the country. That wasn't their mission. That isn't their mission. It's become part of their mission because of Joan Crock. But they were broadsided by this bequest and this sort of instruction from Joan about how to execute it. And I was told that perhaps they might have turned down that gift because they literally, it was such an, enormous task to build dozens of these recreation centers. And if you've never seen one, it's really hard to imagine. Imagine the very fanciest YMCA health club that you've ever seen. They're not just places with a couple of gym equipment and a pool. They're really spectacular places. And that was the goal behind them, is that they're really spectacular places and that they're

available to everybody in that community. And they were built in communities that really needed it. Doing that is an incredibly complicated task. The Salvation Army struggles at first, concerned the ongoing operating costs might prove too challenging for some communities, or that the gift might make a frugal charity seem too flush. Just four centers open in the next six years. After some early hiccups, the army winds up opening 26 crock centers in cities like four. Philadelphia, Memphis, Los Angeles, and others, all of them collectively assisting over 3 million people. Today, the San Diego Croc Center sits on 12.5 acres and serves the community in a variety of ways,

from child care to arts programs. It's what Joan envisioned, a place for people to come and be nourished psychologically and emotionally, a monument to community solidarity, the same kind of community Joan relied on in her Depression-era youth. The centers also create what economists call a halo effect. Building them means jobs in construction, in spending, and in the center itself, while lowering costs for things like health care thanks to fitness programs. There were other gifts, many of them. In addition to an unknown sum left to her daughter from her first marriage, more money went to the San Diego Zoo, Hospice, Opera, Special Olympics,

totaling in the tens of millions. It took Dick eight years to fully execute Joan's estate. In compiling her book on Joan and Ray Crock, Lisa Napoli created a long-lived, of Jones' many donations. It goes on for pages. But in fact, it's likely we'll never know the full extent of her generosity. There are countless stories of anonymous giving,

of tips small and large to those experiencing homelessness and even to workers handing her a fish of fillet at her local McDonald's drive-thru window. Here's Dick Starman. And she always looked at Ray Crack's, that she inherited from him and she inherited his estate, she called herself a caretaker, and she was a caretaker of his money to give it away. And she loved it. She had fun with it, and it was interesting to her. And she loved surprising people or surprising organizations

and doing things for them. It's probably a little too easy to cast Joan and Ray in stereotypical roles. the corporate mercenary, more concerned with the hum of a food assembly line and Joan the more empathetic. Ray was generous too, and Joan was prone to quoting him in interviews. Asked about her giving, she said that Ray told her to remember one thing. He had never seen a hearse followed by a Brinks truck. No, no, I mean, I think everything we do all the time influences everything we do. next in our lives no matter who we are. And so, yes, I think she was wired to be compassionate because she knew what it was like not to have a lot. And so once she did have a lot, she delighted in the idea of giving it away to places and people and causes that she found interesting and

important. Is the why even important? Joan grew up during one of the most important. decades in American history. Years later, she was among the world's wealthiest people. Was she insecure? Did she feel unworthy? Or did she simply have the innate human urge to help however she could? It's a really important American business story. But more interesting is that this woman found herself with this vast fortune and did what we would hope any good human would do. Oh, and as for the San Diego Padres, despite not being much of a baseball fan, Joan did retain ownership of the franchise through 1990.

When she decided to put it in other hands, Major League Baseball refused to permit her to follow through on her original plan. She wanted to donate the team to the city of San Diego, a major sports franchise, the kind of asset that today is worth billions, is something she would have happily given away for free. That's just, that's how Joan rolled. Okay, Zarin, I would love for this to be a movie.

Did you happen to cast St. Jones story? I did. For Ray Crock, already Michael Keaton has portrayed him very well, so I had to leave him out. And so now I'm also out there stuck chasing greatness. So I decided, let me go with Bob Hoskins, because they seem to have a similar chaotic glint in their eye, kind of look alike, right? And then for Joan Crock, ideally it would be like a 50-plus-year-old Doris Day. But going with modern casting, I went with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

I think she would nail it. Maggie Jelenhall is a great poll. Right? I thought they kind of favor each other. I think she can pull off the range that Joan Croc represents. I thought it was kind of a slam dunk. And then for Dick Starrman, the conciliary, I went with kind of an interesting choice, I thought. Sean Bean, they kind of look alike.

And for once, Sean Bean wouldn't have to die before the film ends. I love that. I never would have thought of Sean Bean, but he's also a great pick. Right? He's just a great actor. And I thought, once again, they favor each other. And I started thinking about it more and more. I was like, he would eat up a conciliary role.

Yeah. He's great. He's underutilized. Oh, 100% agree. Now, as far as the name Joan Croc goes, I mean, what PBS watcher doesn't know and thank the Ray and Joan Crock Foundation for their long-time support? But to learn how much more she did, I was blown away. I have to say, before we get to very special characters, I feel like the very special character I want to shout out is whoever fumbled that call when she was going to donate all of her money.

Right. That was the best. That was one of the best moments. I totally related to that. Because if I was like, just me, I totally do exactly that. I'm like, I keep calling. I get voicemail to hell with this. Yeah.

A very special character. I think I want to give it collectively to Joan and the entourage. So the mayor throw Dick in there. I think just them. I want to be in that entourage for whoever today's Joan Crock is. Well, I think it's McKenzie Scott. It sounds like it, right? Yeah.

You know who the other very special, I will say, like very special villain is, that guy? Is whoever didn't let her just donate the Padres to the city of San Diego. Yes, the city. Why is the MLB just not letting her donate a baseball team to a city? That would be great. The MOB is always going to make a choice. It's going to make you scratch your head. You're always like, come on MLB.

This is it right there. It's a slam dog. Just give the team to the city. They already have the stadium. Yeah. You know, Green Bay owns the Packers. Yeah. If anyone's on YouTube and wants to look up, we reference when Ray berates the fans

and a possibly drunken rant, that is good content. That's available. I'm totally looking that up. I know. I was like, I can't believe I didn't even think to Google that. For my very special character, I went with, of course, the sweater-beclad Fred Rogers for the win. I mean, like, how great is it?

He just goes and wins money for PBS, but also just they sparks their friendship that then leads to all these donations. I mean, Fred Rogers, once again, boom. He never misses. No. He's like Larry Bird. He's a shooter. Very special episodes is made by some very special people. This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zarin Burnett, and Jason English.

Our senior producer is Josh Fisher. Today's episode was written by Jake Rossin, editing and sound design by Chris Childs. Additional editing by Mary Dew. Mixing and mastering by Josh Fisher. Original music by Elise McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Kintania. Executive producer is Jason English.

Very special episodes is a production of IHeart Podcast. Dana Zarin and I are going to take a little summer break here where we get ahead on our fall episodes. Got a few things planned for this feed in the meantime. Hope everyone is doing something memorable this summer. If you run into any amazing stories or legends on vacation, hit us up. You can email us at very special episodes at gmail.com. On Instagram, Dana is Dana Schwartz with three Zs.

Zarin is Zarin 3, just the one Zee. And I'm Jason English 9. No Zs. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.

Open your free IHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. American soccer is exploding. The knockout rounds are here. the U.S. won their group, and now every match is winner go home. I'm TAB Ramos. And I'm Tom Boger. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines.

Discuss the tactics that actually decide matches. And give you the truth about the U.S. national team from inside the program. Whether you're a lifelong fan or this is your first World Cup. We've got you covered. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Disgraceland, I tell the stories behind music's biggest names, like how the story of the foo fighters isn't just about music, it's about grief, shock,

in the moment everything changed. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana, and the phone rings, and you learn that your singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Cobain, is dead. Listen to Disgraceland on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 150 years ago, they were hunting us down to kill us, and now they're hunting down immigrants to deport them. This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be, and how we got to this present moment.

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