Hotel Mogul Puts Millions Into Turning Fla. Community Around

The New York Times looks at wealthy hotelier Harris Rosen’s long-term philanthropic project to remake a once-troubled central Florida community and explores how other big-money donors might replicate the effort elsewhere. Working with an existing grassroots initiative, the head of Rosen Hotels & Resorts has spent $11 million since 1993 in Tangelo Park, a largely African-American community close to Orlando’s tourist attractions.

Mr. Rosen, who grew up poor in New York, has funded free day-care centers, pre-kindergarten programs, and scholarships for all Tangelo Park students headed to Florida colleges and trade schools. Formerly a hotbed for drugs where many homes were shuttered and nearly half of all students dropped out, the community of about 3,000 has seen crime plummet and property values and graduation rates rise.