Every time you buy a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, you’re doing more than just sustaining your love of chocolate.
You’re helping fund the education of a disadvantaged child.
That’s exactly the way Milton S. Hershey always wanted it.
Hershey was one of the few corporate titans who came off looking good during the early years of the 20th century. Americans railed against John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, who made millions for themselves while barely keeping their factory workers above the poverty line.
By contrast, Hershey’s legacy is a rare trifecta. He launched a successful company, established an iconic town, and founded a charitable school that has changed thousands of lives.
M.S., as he liked to be called, was the first American chocolatier to figure out how to make good-tasting, long-lasting milk chocolate – a feat that Swiss candymakers alone had perfected by the late 1800s. Gripped by fervent idealism, he set out to create a perfect community in the middle of nowhere in rural Pennsylvania.
In 1903, Hershey PA became the site of his 18-acre chocolate factory, surrounded by a community specially designed for the welfare of his workers and their families.
It remains an idyllic place. The streetlights look like Hershey’s Kisses. Visitors today can drive on Cocoa Avenue and Goodbar Court. In accordance with the founder’s utopian dreams, the village originally had no bars, no prison, no morgue, and no cemetery. It was as if M.S. believed he could banish sin and death from his ideal community.
The town fell considerably short of perfection, of course. During the past century, Hershey has struggled through the Great Depression, labor disputes, changing attitudes regarding sweet treats, and an attempted buyout by the Wrigley Company.
But M.S., who died in 1945, was always loved and forgiven by his workers. He ruled essentially as a benevolent dictator, overseeing every detail of his chocolate bars and homegrown town. To this day he is revered in both the company and the community that bear his name. Decisions are still pondered as if residents wear WWMD bracelets: What Would Milton Do?
Then there’s the Hershey School.
M.S. and his wife Kitty, who died in 1915 at the age of 43, were unable to have children. But that didn’t crush their dream of making a difference in the lives of kids.
Hershey left almost his entire fortune to establish a school for abandoned or underprivileged boys between the ages of 4 and 15. Today the school has just over 2,000 students, both boys and girls, reflecting a diversity of ethnicities and backgrounds.
Over the years, some 150,000 children have attended the Hershey School. None of them has ever paid a dime. Like the town, it has fallen short of utopia. But among its graduates are a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a White House social secretary, a member of the CIA directorate, professional football and baseball players, and a dear friend of mine named LeRoy Baker, who became a chemist at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis and a founding member of the church that I helped plant.
LeRoy, who at mid-century was an orphan living in New Jersey, was forever changed because a man who cranked out chocolate for a living became convinced his wealth was a gift he needed to share with the world.
The Hershey School is funded by a trust that is currently valued at more than $15 billion, a figure comparable to the endowments of some of America’s finest universities. M.S. ensured that the nation’s appetite for candy would go directly to the care and education of some of its neediest citizens – young people whom he considered his “adopted children.”
They are the true heirs of his fortune – a fact that might compel some of us to think twice about giving up Hershey bars for Lent.
Adoption also happens to be at the center of New Testament theology.
No one becomes a member of God’s family through personal achievement. We can’t reserve a spot at God’s kitchen table by memorizing enough Bible verses, praying enough prayers, or hitchhiking on the track record of a faithful grandmother.
But there is indeed a way – exactly one way – to join God’s forever family. It happens through spiritual adoption – the miraculous outcome of entrusting our hearts to Christ.
Consider Paul’s words in Romans 8:15-17: “You received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory” (New Living Translation).
Adoption under any circumstances is extraordinary. A child without a home, without security, and without a future suddenly has all three.
But adoption during the time of the Roman Empire meant even more.
A child adopted into a Roman household got a new father. Boys in particular now had the chance to bear the name and legacy of that household forever.
The adoptee also became an official heir of the father’s estate. There were no legal quibbles here – no special clauses in the father’s will that said, “My own sons get the lion’s share of what I’m leaving behind, and the adopted kid gets the leftovers.” The amazing promise of the verses we just quoted is that when we join God’s family, we become co-heirs with Jesus of all our heavenly Father’s treasures. Whatever Jesus receives, we receive.
Best of all, that young person’s old life was completely wiped out. Completely.
If the person being adopted had financial debts, they were cancelled. It was as if they had never existed. Previous mistakes and missteps were simply erased from the historical record.
Can you fantasize receiving the gift of an utterly clean slate? Can you imagine being mired in a heartbreaking life, only to be invited into a family in which you were truly loved and valued by your adoptive parent?
That would be the offer of a lifetime.
Amazingly, that’s the offer God makes to every woman and every man.
It’s the kind of never-ending treat that Milton Hershey himself could never have imagined.
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