ABOUT JML HOPE FOUNDATION

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The JML Hope Foundation is a private foundation (501c3) co-founded by Michael Lotito in 2018 as a way to find personal fulfillment in his days of early retirement. Once the idea was hatched, unfortunately Mike was diagnosed with cancer and unable to do much more than the initial paperwork to get the Foundation set up.

On October 1, 2018, Mike lost his fight with Mantle Cell Lymphoma. To ensure Mike’s legacy was carried on our co-founder Jennifer Lotito developed the mission of the Foundation based on a concept that was so true to Mike as a father, husband, son, brother, uncle, mentor, business leader and philanthropist.

That mission, to nurture the minds and hearts of the next generation of leaders and ensure they have the tools and relationships to succeed, informs everything the JML Hope Foundation does.

About Mike Lotito

As a kid growing up in a loving Italian family in Fort Lee, NJ - Mike learned a lot about being a B-average Rutgers student. 
Mike truly believed that if you worked hard, had a good heart, aggressively pursued your dreams — and found a few key influential people to have by your side — you would succeed. 
Those key people that stood by his side is what made Mike who he was in business but also in life. Whether it was spending time with his treasured mentors such as Walter Joyce or the countless number that he mentored himself, this is where Mike was his happiest and most fulfilled. But what Mike’s story misses is that while Mike may have succeeded despite not having much growing up, he did have an infrastructure and loving family behind him. 


In the final years of Mike’s life, what became clear to Mike is that there are so many that don’t have that same infrastructure -- and that gap is something he aimed to fill with his time, energy and passion for the students he met through his work at Hands Offering Hope in Mexico. 
 
As we work to turn Mike’s passion into his legacy, the mission of the JML Hope Foundation summarizes all that Mike was focused on in those final years and helps make a reality of all that Mike set out to do in those early days of retirement.