By Patrick Crowley
FSU College of Medicine
The young boy who rode dirt bikes and loved everything mechanical brought a lot of joy to his family, particularly to his parents, Chris and Kellie Kraft of Tallahassee.
“Oh, he scared me half to death racing those dirt bikes,” Kellie said, with a look of motherly concern.
That little boy, Chris Kraft Jr., grew up tall (over six-foot!), enjoying life and everything he loved — especially cars and FSU sports. But he also grew up with something else — generalized epilepsy — the hardest to treat. And on Feb. 12, 2022, it took his life at age 36.
“When he passed away, I didn’t know how to process it,” said his brother, Chase Kraft. “We were so close. We practically did everything together. We played on ball teams together, carpooled together; we even sat next to each other on the school bus. It was a unique experience, and I was blessed to have that.”
That bond between two brothers prompted Chase to establish the JR Foundation in honor of Chris Jr. shortly after his passing.
“I found that doing the eulogy and speaking about him after he passed, I realized how much fulfillment he brought to my life, and that brought closure, peace and acceptance,” Chase said, adding that it motivated him to volunteer with organizations such as the Epilepsy Alliance of Florida, with which the Kraft family held fundraising events.
“I found joy in that,” Chase said.
Soon, an annual golf outing Chase and Chris Jr. took with their friends grew in attendance after Chris’ death and turned into a fundraiser with the goal of helping others with epilepsy.
“We are celebrating the life of Chris Jr. We were raising a little bit of money, and I guess that kind of gave me the itch to jump in and do something more serious, more full-time, if you will,” said Chase, a successful entrepreneur with a variety of business ventures in New Orleans. “That’s how the JR Foundation came to be.”
With that same philanthropic bent and desire to help others with epilepsy and their families, Chris Sr., and wife Kellie were already involved with non-profit organizations, including the Epilepsy Agency of the Big Bend and the Epilepsy Alliance of Florida, where they underwrote the cost of seizure dogs for people with epilepsy. The Krafts were also holding fundraising events of their own, such as a Singer-Songwriter Festival at the Governor’s Club in Tallahassee, followed by a concert with one of Chris Jr.’s favorite bands, Molly Hatchet, at FSU’s Dunlap Champions Club.
“We brought Molly Hatchet in for Chirs Jr.’s 40th birthday,” Chris Sr. said. “We had over 450 people there. We filled up the ballroom.”
When Chase came to Chris and Kellie with the idea of starting their own foundation, they were more than willing to help, as were Chris Jr.’s other siblings, Katie and Cody.
According to Kellie, “Our four children were very close and Chris Jr.’s loss was devastating.” Kellie added that managing Chris Jr.’s epilepsy was a family effort, as everyone knew the signs of a pending seizure and how to handle one if it did occur. “As Chris got older, he could fake it with most people, but he couldn’t fake it with us. Mom knows!”
“The week we lost Chris Jr. — I think it was day three — Chase said, ‘We have to do something,’” Chris said. “He would call me from New Orleans and just say, ‘Dad, we can do this. We can take the pain and do something.’”
And do something they did. In January, the JR Foundation made its biggest, single gift: $250,000 to the FSU College of Medicine to endow a professorship in the lab of Sanjay Kumar, Ph.D., to further his epilepsy research. Kumar is now the proud holder of the JR Foundation Endowed Professorship in Epilepsy Research.
“I am truly grateful to the JR Foundation and the Kraft family for their generosity in funding research from my laboratory; for their confidence in my abilities to undertake this research, and for selecting me for the endowed professorship in Chris Jr.’s name and honor,” Kumar said.
It was by happenstance that the Kraft family and Bill Gilbert, treasurer of the JR Foundation, learned that epilepsy research was being conducted just a few miles from their Tallahassee home. They learned about it while talking to a friend at a golf outing who was familiar with the work being done at the College of Medicine.
“I went out and started googling epilepsy research and what organizations help with it,” Gilbert said. “I put in some key words online, ‘Tallahassee, Florida, FSU, State of Florida, South Georgia,’ etc., and that is how I came about Dr. Kumar's page. I had no idea he was doing that kind of research here in Tallahassee, and as soon as I found it, I started reading, researching, and then had to let the family know. The Krafts, even Chris Jr, are huge FSU fans, as you can imagine, so I knew it was lining up with multiple boxes we were looking to check, to be able to help out and possibly find a cure.”
Finding a cure and effective treatment for epilepsy is front and center for Kumar.
“The ultimate goal of my research is to find a cure for temporal lobe epilepsy which has eluded us for so long,” Kumar said. “TLE is the most common form of adult epilepsies that has proven intractable to anti-epileptic medications. The realization that TLE can be a neurodegenerative disorder in addition to being a hyperexcitability/hypersynchrony disorder, which has come about from basic research in my laboratory, has allowed us to pursue this disease from novel therapeutic perspectives, bringing us closer to that goal.”
Without question, the gift from the JR Foundation is deeply personal for the Kraft family. If you would like to lend your support by making a charitable gift to the endowed professorship, visit give.fsu.edu/JRprofessorship.
