Reader's Digest Article

June, 2000

Home Free

Hopkins Park Illinois

In Hopkins Park, ILL., entrepreneur Sal Dimiceli had six houses built on Main Street where poverty-stricken senior citizens could live rent-free. Last July six families were handed the keys to their new, fully furnished homes.
“This is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened,” remarks 90 year-old Eugene Thomas, in his living room with grandson Montrell Boice.
“Hazel hasn’t seen it yet,” Thomas says of his wife, who is recuperating from heart surgery in the hospital. “But I tell her it’s for real - She’ll have a new home when she recovers.”
The Thomas family had been renting a four-room shack that was barely habitable. “Then Sal came along and said, ‘I’m going to set you up in a new home, and all you have to bring is your clothes,’” Thomas explains. “Sal proved to be a man of his word, and here we are.”
Dimiceli saw the poverty in Hopkins Park, among the poorest towns in the state, when he and his son went there to buy a dog several years ago. “We saw the housing but didn’t think anyone lived in it until my son noticed someone going inside,” says Dimiceli, who manufactures and sells computer components.
He sought out a local minister, confirmed the need and decided to start a charitable organization to help local residents. This year, The Time Is Now will donate almost 300,000 pounds of food, $100,000 worth of new clothing, 16,000 diapers, $20,000 worth of toiletries and $100,000 for renovating existing homes, including turning on people’s electricity and water by paying their overdue bills.
Dimiceli was raised in poverty. “I made a promise to God to work my way out,” he explains. “And when I did, I would donate time and money to others who need help.”