The founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company, Milton Hershey, founded a boarding school for orphaned boys.
Rumors circulating online in October 2025 purported that Milton Hershey, a wealthy businessman and noted philanthropist best known for founding The Hershey Chocolate Company in the late 19th century, once created a boarding school for orphaned boys.
Stories about Hershey’s generosity have circulated online for years, including similar claims about his efforts to open a private school. He was also well-known for founding Hershey, Pennsylvania, a company town surrounding the Hershey factory, built primarily for Hershey employees.
Users on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram shared the purported story of Hershey’s kindness, along with an alleged image of the man with students that said, “He built a chocolate empire. Then he gave it all away to children who had nothing.”
Milton Hershey pic.twitter.com/4rPXHyfvEa
— JacqT (@jptrib1) October 28, 2025
It is true that Milton Hershey founded a boarding school for orphaned boys.
The school was officially founded on Nov. 15, 1909, as Hershey Industrial School (now Milton Hershey School), according to a Deed of Trust that was provided to Snopes by the school. An article from the Nov. 9, 1923, edition of The New York Times reported the trust’s value as $60 million.
A spokesperson for the school told Snopes in an email, “Milton Hershey School began as a dream and vision shared by chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey and his wife, Catherine (Kitty). The Hersheys loved children but were unable to have their own. Instead, they decided to use their wealth to create a home and school for orphaned boys.”
In 2022, ProPublica reported that “to ensure that the school will exist ‘in perpetuity,’ the deed says the board can spend only the income earned by the endowment, not the endowment itself. So while the school’s total assets are worth $17.4 billion, $16 billion of that — Hershey Co. stock, real estate holdings and other investments — cannot be spent, according to the deed.”
According to the school’s spokesperson, the details reported by ProPublica were accurate and the assets listed were correct at the time of publication. The school’s website also listed the trust as its source of funding.
The details of the deed were reported as early as 1923, when The New York Times wrote that “no surplus money is kept idle awaiting possible future needs of the school, the school’s requirements are met as they occur, from net profits, and if there is available money left it is put back into the business, which the school owns, thus increasing the schools assets.”
A history of admissions at the school
The Lancaster New Era, a newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, reported on the development of the school on July 9, 1910, calling it “a fitting climax to innumerable acts of liberal generosity” from Hershey. The paper stated:
With his wife as joint donor he placed on record in the the Dauphin county Recorder’s office today a deed of trust to the Hershey Trust Company of several of his choice farms in Derry township, Dauphin county, the income and rentals from which are to be turned over by the trustees to a board of managers who shall establish, equip and maintain an industrial school for poor, white orphan boys.
A Nov. 10, 1923, article in The New York Times about Hershey’s modesty in publicizing his financial support of the school further addressed the organization’s admittance requirements, writing Milton “placed the age limit for admission at from 4 to 6 years” and “all applicants must be physically and mentally fit, white, and American born.”
Asked for comment on the school’s racist admissions history, a spokesperson directed Snopes to a page on its website addressing the organization’s evolution regarding its commitment to diversity.
The page stated, “The Deed of Trust remained unchanged until Dec. 24, 1970, when all references to race were eliminated and the age was increased to 16. The first students of color were enrolled in August of 1968.”
Further, a spokesperson told Snopes in an email that while the school originated as a school for orphaned boys, “approval was given for the Deed of Trust to be restated to admit girls and children whose parents were living” on Nov. 15, 1976.
“The plan was to enroll girls in the lower grades and gradually increase the number. However, the adjustment of the girls to the School and the ability of the staff to meet the needs of female students were above expectations and the plan accelerated,” they wrote to Snopes. “The first elementary girls were admitted on March 14, 1977, and by July 1977, the first girls were enrolled in the Intermediate Division and by July of the following year, a Senior Division home was opened with the enrollment of female students.”
As of 2025, Milton Hershey School advertised itself as “a top-tier private school for qualifying students in pre-K through 12th grade,” with more than 2,100 students, “offering life-changing opportunities and experiences that other schools simply cannot. Based on the Deed of Trust left by Milton and Catherine Hershey, the school covers all costs for all students.”
“Qualifying,” according to the school’s FAQ page, included the following:
Come from a low-income family
Be age four to 15 at the time of enrollment
Have the ability to learn
Be free of serious behavioral problems likely to disrupt the classroom or student home life at MHS
Overall, have the ability to participate in and benefit from the MHS program