About Vinny

The website is the story of how I got where I am and where I am going. The goal is to motivate others to action.

The beginning: Growing up in Brooklyn

As a child growing up in Brooklyn was the greatest experience any child could have. I had a loving family and Brooklyn was my world. I was always disappointed when we had to leave Bay Ridge to visit relatives. It was so much better when they came to visit us. In my present work I think how important those years were to me and right now how many children around the world are missing out on it. No parent to call them home for dinner or tell them its time to go to bed. It’s painful to think about and should motivate us to action.

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Teenage Years in Bay Ridge​

Vinny Marine Corps

The Mar 29th, 1976 cover of the New York magazine had this map of How a New Yorker see the World. No map could better define my perspective as a teenager. Brooklyn, NY was everything and the only thing to me. As a child, I went to St Ephrem’s grammar school, then to Fort Hamilton High School. A typical, longhaired rock and roll loving teenager, my friends and I lived life to its fullest some would say in a negative sense, but not all was negative. I was a bad son but my parents never stopped loving me.

Marine Corps and radical Christian conversion​

From one extreme to another, I joined the Marine Corps at 19 on a whim. It was during my time in the MC that I had a radical Chistian conversion. For the full story see

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College and the Parable Players ​

Me Earl and Jim

While in college I learned that drama and humor were very effective means of communication. The Parable Players were created with that in mind

Social Justice and overseas mission work

My first mission trip to Nicaragua in the summer of 1991 changed the course of my life. I experience poverty first hand for a week and for me the thought that people have to perpetually live like this was an eye opener. It’s one thing to see a commercial about a starving kid but living in that environment is quite another, I had two thoughts when I returned to America, Thank God and live here and what can I do to help those who do not.

Ivana

The Early Years of Missions work

As the Missions Director of a church I began bringing youth and adult groups on mission trips in the 90’s and in 1996 went on my first trip to Ukraine. During these trips there was a steady shft im my thinking regarding the needs of the poor and our responsibilities toward them

Missions work into the 2000’s
and Hosting Programs

There are many different opinions regarding the direction of social justice: Where do you give? How much” To whom? Long term help vs short term help? My experiences have covered all these difficulties and my views have shifted wildly in the past quarter century

Ukraine CW 2023

Present work and the future ​

When I was a teenager, I hated to see the gang break up into smaller groups as we got older. I did not want to face the reality that people change and move on. I wanted us to stay kids and together forever. In many ways I am still that teenager. I hate to see the forced changes and new suffering that life brings to people. The goal is to prevent that suffering as much as possible one child at a time.

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