Dave’s Second Legacy
“If we can help just one child get a permanent home and loving family, then all our efforts will be worth it.”
Dave Thomas
Dave’s commitment to adoption was deepening as he heard more stories about young children mired in the bureaucracy of foster care. He fervently believed if a child is abused, neglected, or abandoned by their birth parents, that child should be removed and placed in foster care until they can safely return home, or the courts terminate parental rights. And once a legal termination of parental rights occurs and the child is freed for adoption, the child welfare system should remove all barriers and find loving parents and a permanent home.
“Foster care is supposed to be temporary,” Dave would say along with a reminder that temporary meant months, not years. The more he learned about the government system in charge of foster care, the more motivated he was to do something about helping kids trapped in the system. “When kids are moved from foster home to foster home, it’s just not fair. And they’re losing their childhoods,” Dave lamented.
Dave had been contemplating starting a foundation for some time. He’d talk to Charlie Rath and Don Calhoon while filming commercials and weigh the pluses and minuses. He asked his family for their opinions. The Thomas’ had a family fund to assist children in need and education causes. Wendy helped distribute the various grants, and they learned over time it was better for the Thomas fund to focus on a few causes to result in a bigger impact. Dave also remembered the general manager who asked him to tell his adoption story, and he was getting more comfortable talking about it. And he fervently believed that with success comes the responsibility to give back.
Charlie, Don, and Denny believed the time was right for Dave to create a foundation promoting the cause of adoption. The commercials gave him a national platform to do good things beyond asking people to visit Wendy’s. In Dave’s folksy, fatherly way, he could ask Americans to consider adoption. And his foundation would focus of moving children from foster care into permanent loving adoptive families. But Dave made it clear he didn’t want his foundation to add more bureaucracy to the already overburdened child welfare system.
“OK. Let’s do it.” Dave was confident he could make a difference.
Together, they established the charity, formed a Board of Trustees, shaped the mission, and the initial operating plans. They were joined by other Wendy’s officers and franchisees. Dave’s children had a permanent seat on the board and would take turns serving, ensuring the Thomas family would always have input into the foundation’s mission.
Everyone knew how important this was to Dave. Charlie served as the first president, and Don as trustee for many years. Denny would serve 25 years, including 20 as Chairman. Dave was hesitant to put the foundation in his name. His girls encouraged him to do so. Charlie said that lending his name and reputation would immediately build credibility, generate awareness, and help to garner support from the public and other child welfare organizations.
In 1992, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA) became a public, nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity. Dave wanted a public charity so anyone could get involved. He also wanted it deeply entrenched in the core values he learned from Grandma Minnie and others. Charlie rallied Wendy’s executives and franchisees to embrace the cause and provide support. Getting the Wendy’s system behind the cause was crucial.