How It Started.

The Chalfonte Foundation had a humble origin. It was founded by the Rev. James L. Meyer (known to all Chalfonte Kids as “Jimeyer”). As the former chaplain of Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit (CHM), Jimeyer observed that parents, most often moms with their sick children, were being “nickeled and dimed to death” for TV, meals, parking. He noticed that it was often the cleaning ladies who would press some change into their hands: “Here dearie, you can use this.” Fr. Meyer began doing the same. Being the good “hustler” that he is, he parlayed the petty pocket cash into more substantial funding, first under the auspices of his church and then in 2000, incorporated in the State of Michigan as an IRS sanctioned 501(c)(3) public charity known today as the “Chalfonte Foundation”.

In 1977 Jimeyer’s parents, Alice and Matt Meyer, retired to the home that would later become Chalfonte House in Elk Rapids. They welcomed their son on visits, inevitably with a kid or two from the hospital. They both passed in the mid-1980s and the house fell to Jimeyer. The rest is history.

Today, the Foundation is overseen by a board of trustees and program volunteers and staff. The Foundation serves hundreds of childrend and adults each year.