A Kansas City charity is hoping to host Taylor Swift shortly after the fourteen-time Grammy winner’s generous $250,000 donation.
Operation Breakthrough is a nonprofit organization that provides programs and high-quality childcare for children of the working poor.
A week before Christmas, Mary Esselman, CEO of Operation Breakthrough, received a call from Swift’s team informing her that the singer wanted to make a quarter of a million dollar donation to the organization.
“Our kids were pretty excited,” the CEO said. ‘We asked them if they wanted to give a small thank you and you saw that we had many enthusiastic participants.’
In a one-minute video posted to their social media, the children of Project Breakthrough expressed their appreciation for Swift and her donation.
The money received from Swift will be divided among three programs: the Workforce Development and Entrepreneurship Program, which includes ten laboratories where children can learn industrial trades, the before-and-after-school program that provides child care to families like school is not in session, and the early learner program.
Taylor Swift is invited to visit a Kansas City charity after her generous $250,000 donation
“We have 432 students, from five-year-olds, who are there every day for early care and education,” Esselman said of the early learners program. “Our goal is to ensure that every child goes to school ready.”
Swift’s donation was likely encouraged by Travis Kelce’s advocacy and support for the organization over the past decade. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end first visited campus shortly after Esselman took over as CEO.
Given Kelce’s involvement in the programs, Esselman is optimistic that Swift would come visit the campus and the children in the future.
“Maybe she’ll come over with Travis sometime,” Esselman says, “but we couldn’t be more grateful that she chose us for such a special gift.”
Since March 2015, Kelce has been continuously assisting the organization and sponsoring the ’87 and Running’ robotics team. In 2020, he purchased the muffler shop for the high school development and entrepreneurship program.
Most recently, Kelce spotlighted the kids’ projects by driving a 1996 Chevrolet Chevelle that they converted into an all-electric vehicle during his Dec. 8 competition at Arrowhead.
“He came for Read Across America Day,” she remembers. “He read in a number of kindergarten classrooms and he kept coming back.”