We are often asked to explain our foundation and what it does. We are seldom asked why we established it. Our hometown was the small remote uranium mining community of Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is a long way from where we spend our time now, in a wealthy part of Phoenix, Arizona. Not only is it a long way literally, but the lifestyles we enjoy today are vastly distant from what we experienced in our youth.  Yes, we have attained financial success. Like most people, we started with very little and in our case were provided with little motivation to succeed educationally. However, due to our own personal ambitions, we were able to attain significant wealth by building a successful company. It has not escaped us that the favorable business and cultural environments we experienced during those times in both Canada and the USA helped make that possible. We are, after all, baby-boomers.  Shortly after we attained financial success by taking our company public, it occurred to us that within our society there was a vast discrepancy in opportunity. Due to significant  world-wide business travel, we could see that those discrepancies widened even further once you stepped into less developed countries.  We decided that we didn’t need all the trappings of wealth. Yes, we have two nice homes and have travelled extensively. Yet we soon came to the realization that the best thing we could do with our resources was to help others. It is important to us that it would be assistance in a meaningful way. We began our philanthropic activities once we had the ability to do so, but it took a number of years to finally determine where to focus.  Which brings us back to our hometown of Elliot Lake. In our time, there was very little income discrepancy amongst its’ residents. Everyone had a parent who worked in the mines, or in a service industry dependent on those mines. Almost everyone had a parent or two who had experienced a world war. No one was rich. No one lived on the street. Everyone was equal. There were no private schools, no yacht clubs and no mansions. When someone had a problem, people pitched in to help. No child was abandoned. No family went hungry. Everyone had plenty of friends. Most parents encouraged their children to get educated. No one paid any serious attention to politics. Yet everyone embraced capitalism, and everyone strived to improve their lot. That environment shaped the way we are today. Contrast that with society in America today. America has changed, and not for the better. The financial community speaks of a “K-Shaped” economy. As the British poet Percy Bysshe Shelly said over two hundred years ago, “The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer…”. Our current political system is geared to prove Shelly right. Everything works to the advantage of the wealthy and damn everyone else. Issues of health care, food security, quality of public education, gun violence in our schools, access to loan-free higher education and every other serious issue are all perennially un-addressed. Given all this, and given the opportunistic environment we grew up in, we could see that addressing the needs of our society’s most disadvantaged was an area where we might help. While we personally enjoy a very strong family environment, in America, children age out of the over-crowded foster care system at eighteen. Alcoholism and drug abuse cause untold hardships and abandonment for many students through high school. Some have little or no family support and can only attain higher education through scarce scholarship funding specific to their situation or punishing student loans.  This is where we decided to focus, and consequently we have supported hundreds of financially independent students and will continue to do so. We do what we can to address the extreme disparity we see, hoping and believing that education can make a difference. Once again, we credit our desire to do this to the environment we grew up in. The values we gained there are the rock that is the basis for our efforts. Elliot Lake has an iconic symbol, a rock. As big as a house, it sits just offshore on the lake the town is named for. It was a big part of our lives, and we saw it every day. It represents the solid foundation that our hometown provided. Everyone needs a rock. For our students: our hope is that the education you have attained through the assistance we provide, but more importantly through your own stubborn determination, will become your own rock. -Jim and Jo-Ann Armstrong ​