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Kids’ charities depend on Old Newsboys
Sansones lead campaign to help at-risk children BY JANICE DENHAM
No matter how chilly the weather, trading a one-of-akind newspaper on Thursday, Nov. 15, for a donation to Old Newsboys is warmly anticipated. Thousands of volunteers wearing bright green aprons do it every year to benefit more than 200 charities serving children in need. The needs of kids, unfortunately, surface in greater amounts every year. As needs increase, luckily so does the intention of first-line groups whose hearts and hands spread sunshine to better those lives. Old Newsboys is a year-round effort which provides grants and resources to help alleviate the needs. Its visibility brightens on the Thursday before every Thanksgiving when donations are accepted publicly to focus on providing practical items right down to the socks it puts on tiny toes and food that fills children’s hungry tummies. Doug and Molly Sansone lead the way this year as chairmen of the 2018-2019 effort. “My dad was an Old Newsboy years ago,” Doug said, “and I remember him going out to sell the papers in the cold.” Their introduction to the organization came from Billy and Christi Busch. Billy stepped in as honorary chairman in 2015 following baseball Hall-of Famer Lou Brock, then actively chaired the organization over the last two years. The “kid aspect” swayed the Sansones to assume leadership. “We have six children ourselves. Any charities that involve children and are part of the St. Louis area attract us. That is clearly the mission of Old Newsboys. Its donation of 100 percent of the money from the public effort to the organization is a primary reason for us to commit our time and effort. The people who run it are very reliable and very efficient,” Doug said.
Molly grew up hearing about Old Newsboys, too. “Helping fulfill local kids’ basic needs with a well-oiled machine – volunteers to management as a team– makes it easy to dive in,” she said. The first campaign in 1957 collected $34,413. The amount has grown with a goal of covering requested needs. With outstanding events, including a recent Inaugural Polo Match in which Doug played, the goal has been raised as nonprofit agencies every year seek basics
that allow children to thrive. Requests, which require substantiation of how any previous grant was used, include clothing, medicine, equipment, hygiene products, food, activity materials and other nonstop basic necessities. Now in its 62nd year, Old Newsboys, a nonprofit organization itself, has raised millions of dollars for hundreds of children’s charities. Organized by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and continued now by the Suburban Journals and St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, the event continues its association with newspapers. Local teens write stories about charities served by Old Newsboys to deliver the message of caretakers responding to today’s needs with donations secured by the organization. Wearing a label of “charity of last resort,” Old Newsboys affects lives of children in both Missouri and Illinois as part of the metropolitan St. Louis area. Volunteers man their stations primarily in the morning so people can donate on their way
to work or school. Some of them come from the ranks of the charities being served and schools providing assets or receiving funds for thousands of children. The Sansones subscribe to the ideal of generations helping children in the community. “We are doing this personally, but our firm, the Sansone Group, also is a supporter of Old Newsboys,” Doug said. He and his wife, married almost 23 years, say it is an important family legacy they try to pass on to their children. “Our kids get the message from both sides – the Sansones and the Checketts,” Molly added. “The oldest in our family is 21 and ages go down to 5. We like to get the kids involved in what we do, particularly if charity is involved. Our families have been heavily involved in many different local charities and we feel it is important for them to see that, so they can do it, too.” They anticipate introducing Old Newsboys to more people who become active supporters for the future, too. “Even though the charity has been in action many years, there are people who would love to be involved in this child-centered cause today,” Molly said. “Looking at goals for the year, we are adding events, adding friends, expanding to help more kids.” Helping is a natural goal, Doug said, even in the smallest of ways by those with a healthy life. The Sansones look forward to getting to know individually some of the charities helped through this year’s campaign, as well as distribute grants to charities at a presentation in early 2019. “How can you not love helping kids?” Molly asked. Besides donations on Old Newsboys Day, the charity appreciates personal donations to alleviate the plight of needy children. The website http://www. oldnewsboysday.org is available around-the-clock and welcomes any amount to help kids.
Chairmen’s Charity choice welcomes needy citizens BY JANICE DENHAM
war-torn countries and come here with nothing. They leave most of their families It was a family experience for the behind and come here legally. Little kids Sansones. are involved and it is an eye-opening situ“Going back years and years ago, my ation for ourselves and our own kids. There mother and father supported a nun who is always a big conversation with them on worked out of St. Pius X Catholic Church how important it is to help these people,” on Grand Avenue. This modern-day Moth- she said. er Teresa had absolutely no funding to help Offered a helping hand from big hearts, the people who were coming to our country newcomers get “a leg up” on the new syslegally to look for a better life,” said Doug tem as they negotiate the way through reSansone. settlement. “When they arrive, they have He and wife Molly Sansone are co- no money and don’t understand the culchairmen for the ture. Their English is 2018-19 Old Newsboys not good. We simply Campaign. help out those huAs the family grew man beings so they up and became incan thrive in our sovolved personally in ciety. It is a matter of charitable organizahuman dignity.” tions, the next genThe FIRST orgaeration helped Sister nization includes a Paulette Weindel, too. board of directors, of It naturally evolved which the now-refrom what they heard tired Sister Paulette and learned around the is a member. Doug’s family dinner table. sister, Cindy Finney, “We started assisting and her family are and my mom and dad primary helpers, sort of transitioned the too. Relatives and reins over to us. We forfriends interested in malized the effort into The human spirit is alive and well in the plight of refua 501(c)(3) charitable children, whether they are born in a free gees serve on FIRST’s organization, FIRST, to land or saved to live in one. board to make a difbefriend immigrants ference in the lives of in St. Louis. After all, somewhere in all our people fleeing from other countries. families’ histories, we were immigrants,” he “Those who needed help always found noted. Sister Paulette,” Doug said. “She heard by Molly Sansone agreed about the im- word-of-mouth and she would call us. A portant mission of FIRST (Friends of sewing machine, some heaters. We would Immigrants & Refugees of St. Louis - go to the store and buy them and deliver http://firststl.org). As chairmen of Old them to Sister. It was important to be able to Newsboys this year, the Sansones have des- provide 30, 40, 50 window air conditioner ignated it to receive a $10,000 grant as the units to an apartment in oppressive heat.” 2018 Chairmen’s Charity of Choice. To his older sister, demands on peo“Mostly these people are escaping ple fleeing homelands gives them “hero”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOUG AND MOLLY SANSONE
Doug and Molly Sansone and their children deliver Christmas presents to members of a family who came to St. Louis from Liberia as refugees. status. Finney said. “If this be you or me, we would take our families to get freedom against oppression, too. Some go back later and there is no one left. These people are just like us but they have lost everything to war - including their families.” FIRST, she added, follows Sister Paulette’s philosophy. “The real goal, as Sister would say, is to get them to be good, contributing members of society. To do that, we just do basic things for them.” Whether they provided uniforms and school supplies for children in elementary school or helped pay rent until a mom could go to work, they have seen FIRST’s success. An influx of Vietnamese started the campaign. From an early Vietnamese family, a daughter who now works at the International Institute sometimes connects FIRST with specific needs. “A lot of hardworking people came at one time from Bosnia,” Molly Sansone said about their path to becoming citizens. “Now, you see so many of these families rehabbing their neighborhoods. They have started groceriesand become thriving citizens in the community.”
Refugees from Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea are among those helped. Doug and Molly and their children delivered Christmas presents to a family from Liberia last year. Illness and family health challenges have extended their involvement. “We adjust to what they are facing. Sometimes there is a little more desperate situation through illness or tragedy or greater needs of the children, so we help them a little longer,” Molly added. Education is a primary objective upon arrival, Finney said, but no one who is hungry cares to do homework, so FIRST concentrates efforts on food, rent and gas bills. Finney, an older sister in the eight-sibling Sansone clan, recalled her younger brother’s heart for helping people. “One time when we delivered items like window air conditioners, Doug, who was only a teen then, helped take up a table and ended up emptying all the money out of his pockets to those people,” she said. Human emotion is universal, she noted. “They live in fear, but respond with gratitude and joy.”