CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study conducted by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign economist found that the activities of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation in St. Clair County, Illinois, will provide $32 million in labor income creation, 474 new jobs and $10.7 million in new tax revenue throughout the state of Illinois by 2026. The JJK Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to empowering youth to achieve greatness by providing access to quality in-school and after-school programs, safe recreational spaces, and caring role models.
In 2020, the JJK Foundation, the U. of I., the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and Lansdowne UP, an East St. Louis nonprofit, formally joined forces to create the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition Innovation Center to leverage collective assets and infrastructure to ignite economic empowerment and community development in the region. The JJK FAN focuses on building community capacity to address food access, while shaping experiences for youth in STEAM-agriculture, technology, food innovation, nutrition and wellness.
A 24,000 square-foot innovation center as well as indoor and outdoor urban agriculture demonstration facilities are being built to expand programming and food production capacity for the JJK FAN, with a completion date of 2025. Results of the economic study indicate that the JJK FAN will add the equivalent of $7.8 million in new labor income, 126 jobs and $2.7 million in tax revenue to Illinois’ economy by 2026.
Sandy Dall’Erba, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois, estimates that the new innovation center and other JJK Foundation’s activities will have an impact on St. Clair County’s economy worth $22.8 million in labor income, $6.6 million in total tax revenue (combining local, state and federal levels), and create 378 full-time equivalent jobs. According to the study, each new position created by JJK Foundation creates an additional 0.35 jobs in the county. In addition, each tax dollar spent on JJK Foundation leads to a total of $1.49 in county, state and federal tax revenues.
“These results are very impressive,” said Dall’Erba, also the director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics at Illinois. “JJK FAN started in 2020 and one can already observe a significant impact on both the local and statewide economies. In addition, JJK FAN provides significant supplemental non-monetized economic and societal benefits to the citizens of Illinois through its food production facilities, as well as space for youth and community members to engage in hands-on training and certification programs related to growing food, agricultural innovation, and nutrition for improving health and performance.”