NYC Sentinel

Joe Leone, an Italian-American, talking to an employee at his store. Photo: Jeremy B. White

By Jeremy B. White

The story of Joe Leone Introna’s family is the quintessential American narrative of immigrant success. His grandfather immigrated to America from Bari, Italy in 1947. He worked as a longshoreman and sent money home to his widowed mother.

Two generations later, Leone, 34, runs a thriving Italian food importing and catering business that he founded 12 years ago and that is a fixture in his New Jersey community. Also like his grandfather, Leone works feverishly to raise money and send it to Italians in need.

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck Italy’s Abruzzi region in the early hours of April 6, killing nearly 300 people and leaving over 48,000 homeless. Leone quickly raised about $25,000 and traveled to the town of L’Aquila, where he distributed clothing, toiletries and flashlights to the victims.

“The experience was very overwhelming,” Leone said.

Before Leone left, he obliged an Italian man’s request for an American flag, having brought one with the rest of the supplies. As he drove away from the town, he saw an image that he said spurred him into action: an Italian flag and an American flag, fluttering side by side over the shattered town.

“I said that my work wasn’t done yet,” Leone said. “I had a concept of how to motivate Italians throughout the country, young and old, to give back to the homeland of Italy.”

Inspired by the rows of blue government-issue canvass tents that L’Aquila’s dispossessed were using for shelter, Leone has spent the last nine weeks sleeping in a Eureka! brand tent to raise awareness and generate contributions to Joe Leone’s Earthquake Relief Fund, a registered 501(c)(3) charity.

He has pitched the tent in cities around the country, mapping his route through states with a population of at least 300,000 Italian-Americans. Every time someone contributes money, Leone has him or her sign a 6-foot by 5-foot American flag and write where in Italy his or her family originated from. This has produced seven huge flags adorned with signatures and the handwritten names of Italian towns from Naples to Palermo, which Leone will distribute to L’Aquila’s residents when he returns as a sign of Italian-American solidarity.

Leone's current quarters, in front of his New Jersey store. Photo: Jeremy B. White

The tent outside of his store in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey stands beneath a signpost pointing to the different cities Leone has visited so far: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, Hoboken, Providence and Westerley, Rhode Island.

Leone has raised around $20,000 since he established the relief fund, and he pays administrative and travel costs himself. He said that the small size of the charity – he essentially runs it himself, with the help of a few coworkers – makes it more accountable than other charities.

When he returns to L’Aquila on Nov. 22, Leone said he will bring a debit card so that he can purchase directly from local businesses. Christy Feig, director of international communications for the American Red Cross, said that this type of donation often proves more useful than “in-kind” supplies such as clothing that people on the ground must sort through.

“When you send money it can be spent locally and that gives a boost to the local economy and can help get it going again after a devastating disaster,” Feig wrote in an e-mail.

The Italian Tribune, a newspaper targeted at an Italian-American audience in the tri-state area, honored Leone on Columbus Day as “a fine representation of our ethnic background,” editor Marion Fortuna said. In Point Pleasant Beach and Sea Girt, the two New Jersey towns in which Leone’s stores are located, people have been equally receptive.

“I thought it was pretty amazing,” said Susan Diamond, a regular patron, as she waited at the checkout counter adjacent to an American flag layered with signatures. “I’m part Italian, so it really touched my heart.”

Not everyone has been as supportive. Leone’s travels have left him discouraged, as competition from big-name charities such as the American Cross and the National Italian American Foundation has claimed possible donors.

“People have been very territorial when it comes to what to fundraise for, who to fundraise for,” he said. “People are questioning why I’m doing this, why I’m sleeping in the tent.”

“There’s some times that I want to take all they money we’ve raised, put in a check and just give it to an organization that’s bringing money over there and just be done with it,” Leone said. “But then there’s the other side of me that’s saying I can’t do that, because it’s going back on every person that has donated throughout the country.”

Leone is tired. A large man with thick black hair swooped back in stiff curls, his fatigue is evident in his soft and halting speech during an interview in his office. His fundraising mission, he said, is “the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.” After more than two months of sleeping in a tent through the steady noise of Boston or the temperature extremes of the Nevada desert, it has not gotten any easier.

“I’ve never camped a day in my life,” he said. “I get better sleep on the plane.”

Leone had just returned from Los Angeles to spend a few hours checking in on his business before embarking on an evening flight to Florida. He moved among display cases full of meat and tubs of multicolored marinated olives, shaking hands with customers and dispensing advice to employees.

Then, it was time to go.

“I want to see this through, 100%,” Leone said. “I’ve been very tempted on quitting, but I’m not a quitter.”