So, this is my goal. I put together a portfolio of pictures that I went out and took myself, with the help of a friend that was a photographer and my cousin who also was a photographer. The three of us went to many different areas all through Chicago, the suburbs, anywhere that we could find the poverty-stricken. Many of us, when we have time, spend it entertaining ourselves. We look forward to a movie or dinner, going somewhere nice. Very rarely, if ever, do we take the time to go and find the suffering, where there is pain within the lives of people. At first I thought it would be really hard. I was sure hoping that it would be hard; I didn’t want the numbers to be that great. I wanted people to be healthy and happy. That is the reason why I close all of my letters with Health and Happiness, God Bless. I was wrong, it was pretty easy to find the suffering people--lots of people. After I took a lot of pictures and put the location on the back, I started the process of completing my forms for a 501C3 charity organization status. I was pretty surprised that within a few weeks I received a phone call from the IRS office that I sent my application to.
They introduced themselves, and they were on a speakerphone with a roomful of people. They said they received my application. I said "Is there anything wrong?" They replied, "No, to the contrary. Some of these locations are close to our office and we decided to take a drive to them.” They could not believe what they found. They said, "We want to let you know that we went to several of the these areas and found many people suffering from the pain of poverty. We will do everything we can to get your application processed as soon as possible. At the same time as you do get established, we would like to donate food, clothing, and whatever we can to help your quest." When I hung up the phone I remember having tears in my eyes. It was a combination of emotions—I was so happy that people recognized the "truth" in what I saw and at the same time here our fellow people were suffering and nobody was taking the time out to help them. Thanks to God leading my efforts, good people, now that they know, are willing to help.
Moving on, I started doing my work with passion for God. No matter what I was doing during the day, in the back of my mind was to find people that needed help. As I kept trying to find Government agencies that would help, I was shocked to find that there are so many people put in positions to control the tax dollars targeted for helping poverty situations, but they made it so difficult for these people to receive help. They were so defensive against the fraudulent organizations that they became callous and they weren’t getting their job done. That is still true today. I am not here to throw stones at those people or agencies, but the bureaucracy is not doing its job. I would say that the job is being accomplished by some, but not by as many as could or should be done.
I remember one day driving a few hours south of O’Hare airport into the farming areas to pick up a dog for my family. As we were coming through these farming areas, my little boy, who was only 7 years old at the time, was sharing my passion. In fact, prior to this, when he was 3, he was holding his little brother in his lap and hugging him with both arms. He looked up at my wife and I and said, "Dad, I love my little brother so much. I feel like I have a thousand hearts." My wife and I looked at each other and looked back at him, and thanked God for the gift of our little boy with such a loving, kind heart. This little boy brought to my attention the most poverty-stricken area in Illinois and depicted as the 3rd most impoverished area in the U.S. per the Chicago Tribune and Catholic Explorer Magazine. As we were driving through this farming area, here and there we would see little run-down out buildings on these big farms. They were just small shacks, no larger than a one-car garage. We saw a lot of them. My little boy said, "Dad, there’s people in those buildings." And, of course, being the so-called intelligent adult, I said, "No, there can’t be. The roofs are falling in, the windows are broken." As I said that, I was slowing down looking in the broken windows, and I saw little eyes peering out at me. The little boy with the thousand hearts was right. As I drove through this area, Pembroke Township, I was shocked at what I found. It was like God had brought me here and my seven-year-old little boy brought it to my attention. I was awe-struck. I would have never gone into this area at all, and here I was, a few hours from home, in the middle of nowhere, and my biggest quest to help people would begin.
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