When Rich Johnson and the This Time Tomorrow Foundation teamed up more than a year ago, no one realized at the time the impact it would have.
Johnson has been able to donate thousands of dollars to the foundation's efforts to help those with cancer through "selling" corn — for free. The corn is put out in Pop's Corn Stand near Johnson's property in the town of Genesee. Visitors are welcome to take what they like, and leave whatever donation they feel appropriate.
Johnson and his dad, Chuck — whose nickname was Pop — came up with the idea in 2013 to farm part of the land he has at S26 W29894 Boettcher Road.
Shortly after their conversation, Chuck was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.
"I saw what the cancer circumstance did to him financially, above everything else, and decided to help fight that," Johnson said. "We decided we were going to build that field, and the following spring we took to tearing up the ground and everything else."
Chuck died in June 2014, just months shy of seeing the first ears of corn. In his father's honor, Johnson named the stand where the corn is sold Pop's Corn Stand.
For the next five years, Johnson gave away his corn for free and collected donations at his corn stand, which was given to the American Cancer Society.
While attending a fundraising event in 2019, Johnson became aware of the This Time Tomorrow Foundation, which raises money for random acts of kindness, or RAKs. For the last two seasons, all of the money donated at Pop's Corn Stand has gone to TTTF.
"The money we raise goes to the RAK program where anybody in the country can nominate somebody that has any kind of cancer," said Cory Zimmermann, co-founder and president of TTTF. "If you have a family friend, neighbor, someone that is fighting cancer and has a financial distress, they would qualify for a RAK, potentially."
Zimmermann said the foundation grants about 80 random acts of kindness per year. Each random act of kindness is a check for $3,000.
Last year, the corn stand raised $6,000.
The foundation's name is based on a song Zimmermann wrote in 2001 for a friend who was given three months to live. Zimmermann's friend is still alive today.
"Our supporters are incredible," Zimmermann said. "I put a couple posts on Facebook, and there is a line at his corn stand."
This year the corn stand has raised nearly $10,000. In just one weekend, the group raised about $3,000.
"When they put a donation in the box at the corn stand, all of it goes to This Time Tomorrow Foundation," Johnson said. "Every penny. I don't take anything out."
Zimmermann said people come to the corn stand from Racine, Milwaukee, Mequon and other parts of the state.
"It's literally the best corn in the world," Zimmermann said. "He hand plants the whole thing and uses no pesticides. There's a creek that comes on the bottom side of the property, and all of that water is mineral water coming out of the creek."
For more information on the corn stand and the This Time Tomorrow Foundation, visit thistimetomorrow.org/pops-corn and @TTTFoundation on Facebook.
Contact Evan Frank at (262) 361-9138 or evan.frank@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Evanfrank_LCP.
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After his father died, a Genesee man opened a free corn stand to raise donations to help others with cancer - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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