Christopher Pitt’s journey is as inspiring as it is uncommon. A Delaware-based real estate developer and founder of the Pursuit to Own Foundation, Chris is on a mission to bring affordable housing to his community while educating people about financial literacy and homeownership.
But his path to this point has been anything but typical—it’s a story rooted in resilience, shaped by hardship, and driven by a purpose far greater
than himself.
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, Chris’s childhood was marked by poverty and the struggles of sharecropping—a term that feels like a relic of a bygone era, but was his family’s reality.
“People think sharecropping was a thing of the distant past, but it was my life,” he recalls.
By the age of seven, Chris was working long hours in the tobacco fields, laboring under the sun alongside his family. One day, as a nine-year-old, he stood at the edge of a tobacco field and saw his family’s hard work yielding little more than survival. It was a defining moment.
“I knew this couldn’t be the way. We had to do something different,” Chris says.
At the time, his family lived in a cramped, two-bedroom house with no running water and a shared outhouse. The conditions were harsh, and safety was a constant concern.
Chris decided that they needed a new home—a place where his mother could rest without fear, and where the family could begin to thrive rather than merely survive.
Together, they made a plan. Chris, his brother, and their mother worked tirelessly, pooling every resource they could. Eventually, they saved enough to rent a small house on a dirt road.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it had running water and, most importantly, it offered a sense of stability and peace.
“I’ll never forget that calm feeling,” Chris reflects. “For the first time, my mom could rest.”
That experience planted a seed in Chris’s heart—a commitment to helping others find the same stability his family had fought so hard to achieve.
Chris’s story is a reminder that success isn’t measured solely in wealth or accolades. It’s about the lives touched, the opportunities created, and the legacies built. For Christopher, the greatest victory lies in giving others the chance to experience the security and hope that a home represents.
