Sal Di Leo to Help Raise Support to Build Mary Jo Copeland's Orphanage

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Contact: Elizabeth Kirby
2611 Ulysses St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418
612.789.2795, or saldileo@aol.com
 

Sal Di Leo and Mary Jo Copeland

Former Orphan's Way Of Giving Back

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. ( August 14, 2003 ) Today, 49 year old Sal Di Leo is a family man, business man, and an author. 40 years ago, his future didn't look so bright.

"A lot of good has come to my life from the kindness of the people who took me off the streets in the early 1960's and put me in an orphanage when I had no place to go. That's why I want to help Mary Jo Copeland achieve her goal of creating a loving orphanage in Minnesota," explains Sal Di Leo who now resides in Minneapolis.

Mary Jo Copeland is well known around the country as a fighter for the down and out. She has built a massive complex in downtown Minneapolis to shelter and care for the poor. She feeds over a thousand people a day and now has set her goal on building a truly unique and loving orphanage. "We must save the children," Mary Jo Copeland explains. "They are the future," she adds.

"I never would have thought 35 years ago, when I first arrived at the Guardian Angel Home orphanage in Joliet, IL., at the age of 9, that I would some day be telling the whole world how the Sisters of St. Francis saved my life and made all the difference for me. Back then, I thought that was the worse day of my life," Sal Di Leo adds.

"Now, my oldest daughter Jane is a Junior at the University of Missouri, studying to be a journalist, and our youngest daughter Kate is studying to be an Architect at the University of Minnesota. Both kids are wonderful and my wife is the best. How fulfilling my life has become because of the kindness of so many people. I think Mary Jo Copeland will do the same with her orphanage for many kids who are in the same boat I was in," Di Leo states.

Sal has recently published a memoir of his experiences in an orphanage in his new book, Did I Ever Thank You, Sister?, found on-line at www.salsbook.com. It is a profound story. Sal Tells about his early childhood in the early 1960's when he was raised at the Guardian Angel Home Catholic Orphanage in Joliet, Il. with his three siblings. Later he attended Father Flanagan's Boy's Home, at Boys' Town, Nebraska.

Di Leo by trade owns a marketing consultant firm with a special focus on corporate branding and corporate sponsorships (www.dileobranding.com). He will be able to spend time working with the business community to help build sponsorship support for Mary Jo's project, as well as working with civic leaders in Minnesota.

"Sal came to us about 10 months ago to help us as a volunteer to promote my new book. My husband Dick and I have both agreed all along that God sent him to us for a reason. His personal life story and his business experience are a perfect fit to help us reach our goals to build the orphanage," Mary Jo concludes.

For more information on this story contact Elizabeth Kirby or Sal Di Leo at 612.789.2795 or sal@salsbook.com or write to Elizabeth Kirby, 2611 Ulysses St. NE, Mpls, MN 55418.