Ever since Chedy Hampson sold his company for $295 million, he’s been pondering the best way to give some of it back to the South Side neighborhood that raised him, fed him and occupied his time with sports and games.
Today, Hampson is expected to announce the formation of a new non-profit foundation focused on affordable housing, after-school activities, childcare and transportation.
The South Side Community Growth Foundation has a board of directors and two staff members. Hampson won’t say how much money he has already donated to the cause, but he said it is in the millions. He also hopes his commitment to the foundation builds momentum to win grants from corporate donors and government.
“It goes beyond my money and it also goes beyond a year or two,” he said. “We’re talking decades of investment that’s needed.”
In August 2022, Hampson sold his trading card company TCGplayer to the online auction site eBay. Five months later, he announced he would leave the company. Now, he calls himself a business leader and philanthropist.
Hampson grew up on Kenmore Avenue, next to McKinley Park. The vacant house is now owned by the Greater Syracuse Land Bank. There are 53 other vacant residential buildings in the neighborhood. That’s 10% of all parcels.
Nearly two-thirds of households earn less than $25,000 a year.
Last year, Hampson wrote one check for that amount to help Home HeadQuarters with a massive, one-day makeover of a neighborhood not far from Kenmore Avenue. He gave another $50,000 that will likely be used to give small grants or loans for roofs, porches and other home improvements.
All along, he wanted to do something along those lines, only much bigger.
Hampson is president of the new foundation’s board of directors. Other members are Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens; Evelyn Ingram, director of community and media relations for Wegmans; Melanie Littlejohn, president and CEO of the Community Foundation; Sheena Solomon, executive director of The Gifford Foundation and Ryan Benz, a developer and restaurant owner.
One board member, Audrey Haskell, has lived on the north end of the park since 1980.
The board hired Liam Kirst, who has worked in city planning and helped with the block blitz for Home HeadQuarters, to be the community engagement coordinator. Heather Morris is executive assistant to the board of directors.
Kirst has been going door to door and holding kitchen table meetings to hear what residents want from the foundation.
Their first request is for small grants for home repairs, he said.
“There’s folks that might make a little too much to get a grant, but not enough that they feel comfortable taking a loan out for property improvement,” Kirst said.
The foundation is also interested in after school programs and more sports opportunities in McKinley Park. Three teens who played basketball there this week said they would love to have a soccer field and there is plenty of room where there used to be baseball diamonds.
The neighborhood is outside the boundaries of the South Side neighborhoods that are getting attention and dollars to rebuild as Interstate 81 is torn down. It is not part of the new East Adams, the redevelopment of public housing; or Blueprint 15, the effort to bring better schools, job training and child care centers to the city.
The boundaries are not strict, but Hampson is generally interested in the 10 blocks surrounding McKinley Park.
The park has a pool, a playground and two basketball courts. Houses back up to the park along three sides. Hampson remembers cutting through friends’ backyards to get in.
The group’s mission is clear, but the specifics are intentionally vague at this point, he said.
One commitment is to join Home HeadQuarters in 2025 for another block blitz in the McKinley Park neighborhood.
“That will bring a certain level of investment in home grants and other things, right?” he said. “We’ll be thinking about how do we enhance that? What more sponsors can we bring into it?”
Hampson is also talking with city officials and the Land Bank about opportunities for development. He said he has some good ideas, but first, he wants to know what the neighbors want.
“It’s not just action for action’s sake,” he said. “It’s got to be something that they’re proud of.”
As he reflected on the best way to help the neighborhood, Hampson said he thought about the many people who helped him learn and grow. He spent a lot of time goofing off and playing video games, he said. He played baseball in the park. He took the bus to computer classes.
All of those activities paid off.
Hampson graduated from Corcoran High School and went to Mansfield University on a baseball scholarship. He transferred to Onondaga Community College, but did not graduate from either school. He rented the family house until 1997, when he was 24.
Hampson started a web design business and eventually turned his interest in gaming and comics into a store, then the fast-growing trading card business.
Hampson also remembers how other parents filled gaps for kids who needed supervision or dinner.
Before today’s launch, the foundation invited neighbors to a private barbecue in the park. Syracuse University basketball players J.J. Starling and Eddie Lampkin, Jr. signed autographs and played basketball with the kids. Flying Pig Catering brought the food.
Haskell, who watches the park from her porch, is also the co-founder and vice chair of Food Access Healthy Neighborhoods Now, which runs a food stand in the Valley Plaza.
Haskell and other volunteers set up a table for that group at the neighborhood barbecue. One woman came to her in tears. A girl had told her: “I’m so happy we get this food because this is my breakfast and my dinner.”
Haskell thinks the neighborhood could have a farmers’ market and cooking classes. Maybe they could partner with the Food Bank to feed kids in the summer. There are a lot of possibilities, she said.
“I think his heart is certainly in the right place,” she said. “Hey, he’s a hometown kid.”
