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It is good to have friends who have friends. The New York Foundling has a couple of very good friends in Father Francis J. Gasparik, O.F.M. Cap., and Susan Gendal. So, when the Foundling was hit with a totally unexpected expense of $62,500 to replace every crib it provides to foster parents in the five boroughs, it didn’t even have to ask. Both Father Gasparik and Ms. Gendal, senior vice president of Empire Office, one of the largest office furniture suppliers in the nation, were there. And they in turn have tapped into their own circles of friends and associates to ensure that New York’s most precious citizens are safely tucked in every night.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of more than 2.1 million drop-side cribs last November, the largest single crib recall in U.S. history, because of safety concerns that children could become caught between the mattress and side railing if it separates from the crib, possibly causing suffocation. It was the latest in a string of recalls of nearly 5 million drop-side cribs for the same concerns over the past two years. New York State banned the sale of drop-side cribs in 2010.
When he received the telephone call from the office announcing the recall, Foundling executive director William F. Baccaglini was sitting in midtown traffic with Ms. Gendal, whose company supplies the agency with most of its office furniture.
“I got a call from Carmen (Jirau-Rivera, associate executive director) saying there was a recall on these cribs and we had to get them out of our homes,” he remembered, “We’re so big it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out that’s a lot of money.” The Foundling supplies its foster parents with 210 cribs and the cost to replace each is about $250.
But the challenge appealed to Ms. Gendal, who immediately offered to help.
“I said, ‘Bill, I’ll take care of it,’ ” Ms. Gendal explained. “It’s not that hard to ask someone to donate for a crib and I know a lot of people, so I figured if I ask each person for a crib, I need 210 people. And there hasn’t been one person—friends, associates, vendors, clients of mine—that I asked who has denied me a crib.”
Ms. Gendal’s association with the Foundling has been relatively recent. She got involved as a volunteer fund-raiser after becoming aware of the Foundling as a vendor. “I started going to all the facilities and seeing all the good works that the Foundling did and I felt a kinship,” she told CNY.
Father Gasparik’s association with the Foundling goes back much further. He was a foundling himself, adopted out in the early 1960s through the efforts of one of the institution’s iconic figures, Sister Mary de Sales Collins, S.C.
Father Gasparik has been a friend ever since. Currently in residence St. John the Baptist Church on 31st St. in Manhattan, where he’s involved in provincial administration, he travels a few blocks downtown every Tuesday to celebrate Mass in the chapel at the agency’s headquarters at 590 Sixth Ave.
“I’m a product of the New York Foundling, so naturally I have a fondness for this organization and the work that they do,” he said. “I got involved with the cribs because I heard there was a need, a critical need. We can’t have any little children getting hurt or killed.”
Working with his friends and associates in the midtown community, he managed to raise the first $10,000 for the campaign. “I’m a former development director for the province and mission secretary and prior to that I was the pastor of St. John the Baptist,” the Capuchin friar said. “I’ve been in the midtown community for 20 years so I’ve just developed lot of friendships and relationships.”
That was a good start, leaving Ms. Gendal approximately $52,000 to raise.
“I think we need 139 (donors) now,” she tallied. “Each time someone calls I go 210, 209, 208. It’s like that song, how many bottles of beer on the wall. It’s down to 139... I have a mental tally. I had a new client today. I asked them, and I got two new cribs!”
Both Father Gasparik and Ms. Gendal say asking for the money has not been difficult. “If it’s a worthy cause people will generally open their hearts,” Father Gasparik said. “The other thing is, its tangible, and the cribs are only about $250 each, so I think it’s a very doable thing for people, even in this economy.”
Norma George, currently fostering infant twins in Brooklyn, recently received her two new cribs. She told CNY she was “very relieved” when they arrived, adding it would have been difficult for her family to pay for the cribs out of pocket. “We have other kids, it would have been a financial problem for us,” she said.
Baccaglini said that simply repairing the old cribs or sticking foster parents who couldn’t afford new ones with the bill was never an option. They have set a deadline of March 31 to have all the cribs purchased and distributed.
“They’re taking care of our children,” he said. “We are responsible. How could we ever live with ourselves if we ignored this warning and wound up with anything happening to our kids? In our business, it’s not acceptable.”
Information on donating: info@nyfoundling.org or (212) 886-4043.
