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Pops Culture is a nonprofit built around a simple idea: fathers and kids both do better when there's a real space to be honest with each other — and with themselves.
 

The name "Pop" is a play on the father figure, but the mission goes beyond any one household. We're here to address the shit dads do the mistakes, the distance, the moments we wish we'd handled differently and to build a culture that actually supports dads' mental health instead of expecting them to carry it alone.
 

The Founder's Story
 

Pops Culture was born in a hospital bed, during Aaron Rouselle's second liver transplant the lowest point of his life. In that moment, Aaron had an experience he can only describe as being given a choice: come home, or go back and finish the work he still had left to do. He chose to come back. He woke up with the idea for Pops already in his head.
 

That moment didn't come from nowhere. Aaron was adopted as a young Black child into an all-white family, and growing up, he never quite felt like he belonged not fully in his own home, not fully anywhere. Sports became the place that changed that. On a field or a court, belonging wasn't handed to him by circumstance; it was something he could earn. That's where his confidence came from, and it's where he first understood what it felt like to be truly seen.
 

He's failed plenty of times since  as a person, a spouse, a father. He'll be the first to say so. But he's never stopped trying to be better at all three.

That's the whole idea behind Pops Culture: owning your shortcomings, facing your challenges head-on, and understanding that even when something isn't your fault, it's still your responsibility to do something about it.

Aaron never wants another kid or another dad, or person  to feel as alone as he once did. Pops Culture, and the Bunker it calls home, exist to make sure they don't have to.
 

Why We Exist
 

There's a gap that doesn't get talked about enough the space between what a parent means to say and what a kid actually hears. Between what a young person is going through and what the adults around them notice. Left untended, that gap costs both sides their mental and emotional health.
 

The numbers back this up. Kids who feel close to their fathers are half as likely to experience multiple depression symptoms. And yet 75% of fathers report feeling isolated, often carrying that weight quietly rather than risk looking anything less than in control.
 

Closeness on one end and honesty on the other aren't separate problems  they're the same gap. Pops Culture exists to bridge it.

 

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