Superpower: The grace of God
Co-Founder and Director, The Maddox Potter Foundation
Jennifer Potter’s son, Maddox, passed away in January 2025, less than two years after he began noticing persistent back pain. He was a talented golfer, so the family suspected a sports injury, but ultimately a slew of tests and surgery revealed that it was stage IV alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma—a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer.
Soon after his death, Jennifer and her husband, Davey, founded The Maddox Potter Foundation, which supports families experiencing childhood cancer. The organization offers monetary gifts to help offset expenses. Hospital social workers distribute the foundation’s financial assistance application, and it does all it can to lighten the load. Donations are also made in support of research into sarcoma, in which there has not been significant improvement in over 50 years, in hopes of making strides toward greater treatment options and outcomes.
In perhaps the biggest nod to Maddox’s memory, the Potters encourage the growth of youth golf through outreach and free lessons—not only because Maddox loved the sport so much, but because it’s a perfect option for children who are going through treatment. They can have fun and stay active and competitive without being involved in a contact sport and without putting their immunocompromised systems at risk in crowds.
Potter credits their family’s support system for helping them get the foundation off the ground with essentially no philanthropic experience. She is grateful to the social workers they partner with for identifying the families who most need support. And most of all, she is proud to do work that Maddox asked her to do before he passed—to make sure somebody learns from his circumstances. “The support we’ve seen has helped us keep that promise to Maddox,” she says. “We said, ‘We don’t know why this is happening.’ Nobody could ever really answer that question. But I promise it’s not for nothing. I do know that this will not be wasted.”
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