Jonny Boucher grew up in Long Grove but didn’t grow up with “Long Grove money.” Yet, he says he did grow up in a rich household, in the sense that he had loving parents who supported him.
Growing up music was something Jonny was always interested in. His first concert was Garth Brooks in 1989 followed by a Willie Nelson's show when he was six-years-old.
“Music was my shit, very young in life I got involved with music. I always kept a pulse on music. By the age of 10 I had the most diverse music collection that a human might have had at the time.”
After telling all his friends to start bands he began booking punk rock shows at 13. Jonny soon realized he was bringing the community together and found joy in it.
“I brought this community of people together that felt that they didn’t belong. To a place where they could be free for a little bit before going back to shitty lives full of abuse of neglect.”
Fortunately for Jonny, beyond his parents being loving and supportive of him, their support was also spread to all of his friends in need.
“I’d come home often and find my friends chilling with my parents. My mom's nickname was Oprah people would be like, ‘ima go talk to Oprah.’ Because they could talk about anything and wanted them to leave in a better place.”
During his time at Columbia College Chicago the shows Jonny booked only got bigger and he began to work alongside Mike Scanland, a predominant music promoter. Who became a close friend and mentor to Jonny.
Soon after Jonny became a marketing and advertising director. Alongside Scanland they were booking 85 concerts a year and 15 festivals.
“What music did for me at all these different ages was gonna be something that could help other people.”
After graduating college in 2009 he began to manage artists and backpacked Europe. When he came back he still pursued some artist management and consignment work in the advertising industry.
Then in 2010 Jonny and his father began to work on a tequila company. While he was down in Jalisco pitching investors, he received unfortunate news regarding Scanland having committed suicide.
“Mike was like my Robin Williams he was the guy I wanted to become. He made me laugh, he taught me a lot, he trusted me with a lot.”
When he came back Jonny wanted to do something different. He didn’t know what it was he wanted to do, but he knew it needed to impact others. The idea of Hope For The Day had been in his mind for quite some time.
“[Hope For The Day] was actually my first aol screen name.”
Soon after he decided to pursue that idea of Hope For The Day and relating it to suicide prevention and mental health.
“I was focused on building something that never existed.”
On May 25, 2011 as Jonny sat in his back patio while consuming a bottle of whiskey and bawling his eyes out he wrote down all the peoples name he had lost to suicide.
“Mike was number 9 on a list of sadly 16 people now that I personally lost to suicide. I realized the common theme between all the 16 people I lost to suicide they didn’t wanna talk about it.”
That same night he decided he was fed up and went on to file as a nonprofit organization. The next day he went to Barnes and Noble and bought a Nonprofit Kit for Dummies and started Hope For The Day.
The concept of opening up a coffee shop came about after partnering with Dark Matter Coffee and putting resources on the back of their bags.
“I wondered if we opened up a coffee shop and put resources in the front and not in the back if people would vibe with it. So we decided to start building this concept.”
In May 2018 Jonny opened Sip of Hope in honor of mental health month and a close friend he lost to cancer who would always tell him to build a social enterprise back in 2016.
Sip of Hope became the worlds first coffee shop which 100% of the proceeds support suicide prevention and mental health. The shop is community based and offers resources to anyone seeking them.
Today, Hope For the Day has evolved into a successful nonprofit organization which has a footprint in 20 countries.
Jonny is looking to expand and is currently looking for a second location in which to open a second coffee shop, as well as opening a headquarters out in Colorado.