🎙️ From Orphanage to Opportunity: How Your Hardest Chapters Write Your Best Story - Episode 45

at the age of nine, dropped off at an orphanage, having to figure life out all by himself. But Stephen Beondilo didn't let it take him down. He rose to the task. He wrestled through the issues and eventually scaled a $22 million industry into an industry that produced more than $2 billion of funds and indirectly and directly affected close to 50 million Americans. Meet Steven Beondalo this week on Jewish Grit. [music] >> [music] >> It is a pleasure and an honor to welcome Steven Benderilio into our studio. Thank you so much for making the trek here. >> Oh, delighted to be here. >> So, Stephen, we are definitely going to talk about how you build an industry from what is it $20 million to $2 billion. Okay. And coin a phrase that every organization uses. We'll get to that. Um but before we get to that, we're going to start at the other end because um we know that life is not always roses. There's often thorns and I think in your personal narrative uh definitely you had your fair share of those. Right. >> So if you can bring us into a moment, a time period either personally or professionally where you needed your Jewish grit to just survive and then to make it to the next stage of your life so you eventually can thrive. My uh mother was born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish household on the Lower East Side, but my father was her third husband, right? And so she had two Jewish husbands. And then when the second of her parents passed away, she sort of left the tribe. And so my father was a Sicilian Catholic. And um he died when I was six years old. And u my brother was five, my sister was seven weeks old. And I was the first kid in the neighborhood certainly in my public school in New York at that time whose father had died. And you know, in a workingass neighborhood in Queens, um it was kind of tough. You know, you're the only kid around without a father, right? So I will tell you that from the age of six when uh my father passed away, I prayed to God every night until I think I was 15 and a half. I finally had my first night in which I wasn't prayerful. I wouldn't go to bed without a conversation with God. That was my stability, right? My the the the point of stability. I spoke with God. I mean, just talking about my day and and the challenges and um hopefulness for protection um because you're a little kid and my mother not that stable. She had never worked and so she fell into, you know, a situation again because of at that time was almost an interracial marriage. You know, this this sort of olive Sicilian Italian group and then this Orthodox Jewish group and neither stepped in to really help meaningfully um when my father passed. And so the cycle was you know poverty, welfare, other negative things. And within three years, she made the hard decision, a decision that I've described as um a cross between Sophie's and Solomon's choice to give up the two boys to Philadelphia Orphans Court. Was living in New York City, but in Philadelphia, she had received advice from a Jewish lawyer whose name was Jack Goldberg. Um and he'd said, "There's a school for fatherless boys in Philadelphia. you can give up your children to Philadelphia Orphans Court and steer them uh towards a placement in that school. And that's exactly what she did. And so I uh had the good fortune to grow up at Gerard College um school for fatherless boys, which is now 178 years old, by the way. That was the next level of grit as you think of it because um you can barely imagine being dropped off in a school with hundreds of boys and you are no longer the focal point or priority of any adult and so what do you do there? >> Do you remember that moment of being dropped off in the orphanage? >> Oh yeah, that's a Yeah, I was 9 years and 11 months old and um it's uh it's quite an experience because you're being dropped off everything's foreign. the way the kids are dressed and you know what they do, how they do it. Um the you know the sort of the rigidity of the environment. I was growing up in a chaotic household um for 3 years after my father's death you know from the age of 6 to 9 almost 10. >> Now you you you you don't seem like you're a 6'2 fellow. >> Correct. Um, so how do you survive that environment um when clearly there's people there that are vying for positions of power and the socio brackets and everything else that goes on in these type of places? >> I know I know Lord of the Flies sort of sort of jumped into your mind. >> So in a in an all boys environment um athletics is is probably the way to assert yourself. And so my sort of greatest original gift from my father was athletic capability. So in fact, Adam um on on the team had a look at my my father boxing in the 1947 Golden Gloves. And so you know a lot of athletic um capability is is genetic is inherited. So I walked into this school and frankly in my age group I think it was 120 kids or so I was immediately the best baseball player. for instance and then um >> that helps >> that helps that helped um and then um uh I think it's it's that piece of it and the and the next sport that I took up which is a sport I'm in the national hall of fame for is wrestling and so I I often say you know I came into a hard environment in a sense I don't want to sugarcoat um what it was to grow up in an institution nevertheless you know it provided the stability the enrichment the you all the opportunity in the world. Um, but I came in to a hard environment. It gave me one more thing like the world's hardest sport that helped me survive it because if you become an accomplished wrestler of all sports, people will leave you alone, won't they? You know, because you can handle yourselves um physically. Looking back at your life in the rearview mirror. >> Yeah. today, a dad, granddad, a very accomplished professional, done so much amazing things for the world, as we'll get to soon. >> Um, and you had to rewrite your book. Would you include that those few chapters as part of your formative experience or you just if you could rewrite it, you'd write some very nice, stable chapters of a loving home? No, you know, I've already written a book um uh and and the truth of the matter is I've confronted a lot of the sort of insights and situations that I encountered along the way and um and I write it in in poetry and essay form and um it's quite um you know for me it's quite meaningful obviously you know so um I wouldn't change anything about my life that's the key question you know would you you know have grown in a family you know where you The dad dies, poverty, welfare, and all kinds of negative things unfold. You wind up for seven years in an institution. Wouldn't change a thing. >> Wow. >> Would not. I was being prepared >> for to to manage in in this life. I was >> Okay. So, let's jump ahead. So, 15, uh, that's where your your your career at the at the school for boys without daddies, right? Uh, concludes. What do you do? You go out to college. What happens at 15? >> Yeah, at 16. At 16. So, I graduate high school at 16. I go off to a university. >> That's pretty young, >> you know, on a full ride. You know, of course, I go up a lots of full rides because if you're academically talented from the uh from the underass, you know. >> Oh, I thought it was the wrestling scholarships. >> No, I had those, too. I was covered all bases, you know. I was the just a couple of points of Jewish pride at the time when I graduated. I think it was um the school was 124 years old or 125 years old. and I was the um first um Jew to be the student body president at that school. Um so that was sort of the you know the the main student leader of the school and I was the first one to win uh the bulk of the best athlete awards at the school. No Jews had ever won. I won three out of four of the best athlete awards. It's not something the Jews now talk about validictorians as saludiatorans. Plenty of Jews, [laughter] right? But um >> and how does it go that the chances of a Jewish kid playing for a professional team is much slimmer than owning a professional. [laughter] >> Exactly. Right. Interesting. And you can believe that, right? >> So you go to college. Where'd you go to college? >> So Boston University um undergrad. I was a great school. Um I had a I was in the English department there at a time when the all the humanities were loaded up with rock stars. I'm not certain whether that's true today. Um but uh at that time of wonderful education. I had one uh woman in particular um Helen Vendler was the top English language poetry critic, top two, three in all of history and I had a great relationship with her. Wrote 10 papers for her. Elevated my reading and writing ability extraordinarily. So >> Okay. And then how do you segue into the uh professional world? >> So after after um Boston University, I have a scholarship to study in France for a year. Um, I do that and then I make the decision to come back on the PhD track at McGill University in Canada. And in Canada is where I um I encounter the best wrestling technician coach in all of North America who happens to be a Soviet Jew who had defected initially from Malddova to um Israel. won a a medal in the world championships who then then came to Canada defected to Canada and um um built um the top wrestling club in North America really I want to say at the time and just to jump to the proof point he's produced 40 over 40 Olympic and world medalists I was with him for three years so you have the Jew at the helm of an athletic organization and I'd encountered more Jewish athletes than I'd ever had in my entire life in fact you don't even think you'd ever encounter another one. Most of the environments I'm in, I'm the Jew, right? That's rep. I I represent us in the in that group of athletes, but here there were a bunch of them. Olympians, world medalist. It was incredible. And so, um, so they mentioned the Makabia Games to me. And so, I did the national trials in Canada for the World Makabe Games, won them, and then represented Canada in Israel in 1981 at the World Makabia Games. >> And then what happened there? Did you win it? I I was I was second, you know, the kid I wrestled in the finals had the Jewish father and the Christian mother. I had the Jewish mother and the Catholic father. You know, you're bound to have this sort of thing happen, you know. And so, um, they asked the medalists if they'd like to stay and live in the, um, country for a while. So, I, um, I did, uh, you know, and I was sort of the the the lead, uh, freestyle wrestling athlete in the country. So, I was a little pro alete for six months. I said, "When am I going to get this chance again? Let's do this." So I did and it was great. So really if you think about it, my exposure to the Jewish community very kind of little um went to a few Passovers growing up when I was in the orphanage. My um um I insisted on being bar mitzv apply to take me out for a weekend, bring me back to New York. I had to learn my kaftra under the pillow with the cassette tape. There's no Jewish education or anything Jewish going on at this particular school. So, but I learned how to read and write Hebrew when I was uh seven and eight years old before I went. Didn't forget. Just needed the tune. Came back for a weekend. Um I was in, you know, in an Orthodox shul in Queens. I've read my Haft Torah or sang it I should say and um did that. Next stop Beu. I meet a lot of uh Jewish students from very foreign looking to someone from the underclass like myself. You know, it's kind of very foreign uh looking crew. So I don't I develop one group good group of Jewish friends that I've maintained my whole life. But it was really back to the athletics. the thing that protected me in life um when I was a small kid and then in the orphanage and then onward that crew is what created my Israel opportunity you know in Canada. So >> So did you have a uh any point in your life where you could really learn more about the religion other than what you knew growing up from the age of 1 to nine? Now, one to nine was really it. Although in college, um, I did take a year of Hebrew, [snorts] right? Figuring I had the advantage that I could at least read and write the letters even if I didn't know what I was saying or reading, you know? So, I did that. Beyond that, I didn't have any Jewish studies. So really my and and then I was in Israel, you know, as an athlete, you know, for a half a year living on in um uh a kibbutz that that specialized in housing athletes, by the way. Um wasn't really, you know, loved the time there. It was interesting. Wasn't receiving much of an education. It really wasn't until three years ago in Olami and my I have an Olami mentor, a Rabbi Mendy Gold. um and that I really started to get some systematic Jewish education for the last three years. Twice a month I talk with Rabbi Mendde Gould. We talk for an hour, hour and a half, whatever it is. And initially we were talking the Bible stories, the principles, the you know the ethics, the this that all wonderful and now you know of course last little bit we gravitate towards geopolitics because how could you not? There's so much mishugas everywhere you know in the world with us. So um I'm endlessly grateful to Olami uh for that because they've really kind of my first systematic exposure in education. >> Okay. So let's take a deep dive into your career. Eventually you find this the nonprofit space which >> is kind of where you launched your career and you literally revolutionized the world. tell us a little bit how you got into nonfor-profit, then how you came up with the strategy that you had, and then kind of a little bit more about that journey and where it's at today. >> Something I like to say uh to to young people is we live in a time where strategy is overvalued and opportunity is undervalued. So, here I was, I was a kid at the time. I had just gotten married and I had a baby on the way and I needed money and so I uh was just looking for money. I'd finished with the graduate school piece. Um I had been in Israel and now I'd come back to the States and I just uh needed some money. So I calling the contacts, do you know of anything? And an opportunity arose. you know, we received a $9,000 block grant in the north end of Boston to clean up the parks. Would you take that over? You know, it needed money. You know, you you do what you have to do. So, I took the $9,000 and you think, where would it go? Well, within 5 years, I developed a training program that was training 23 cities and states on how to manage kids and doing environmental improvement projects and was running a national competition for all of the summer jobs programs in the country focused on cleanup, litter control, anti-graffiti, etc. Take a little opportunity to clean up 12 pocket parks and blew it up. That's just an opportunity. So, this was pretty visible in Boston. The next opportunity came, there's a walk-athon came to me and said, "Have you ever been in a walk-athon?" "No." "Ever seen one?" "No." "Ever given anyone any money for it?" "No." "We like what you did with the with the with the community cleanup that blew up all over the country." And that program was called the Grime Fighter program and the National Grime Fighter Games, you know, fun stuff. We like, "Come look at the walk-athon, see what you can make of it." I said, "Sure, take it. Another opportunity." I knew nothing about the game, right? So we came in, we did take a look and we did you know just using again when you're not you don't come up in a system you can come in with the pure creativity right you're not biased in any way no one's told you this is how it's done and we developed a lot of insights and techniques that blew the space up instantly within like six seven months we went from we took this little event over little not so little 400,000 and uh blew it up into the world's first million dollar walk-athon $1.1 million dollar. Now, that was uh that was the tanamount to waking up one morning and finding out that the Grover Cleveland Middle School down the street, you know, had a bake sale that raised $1.1 million. You'd say, "What was in the brownies?" Right? [laughter] And so the the the bottom line is was a shot heard around the world. Press on that with South America, Europe, Soviet Union, everywhere. Press everywhere. And we didn't look back. We produced those events for seven or eight years for a variety of different nonprofits all in the million and multi-million dollar range and then developed an educational model that we could use to um empower all the nonprofits in the country who use that form of fundraising as a primary finance vehicle. So to understand the space, walk-athons were the outgrowth of political protest marching in the 1960s. They morphed initially into a giant wave of crop walks for hunger all over the United States, typically church-based. And then the March of Dimes brought the technique into the public health sector with which it is now synonymous. It's really all the diseases that you're synonym you know the breast cancer events before that the AIDS events etc that use that as a primary way of making money. So we've now worked for 14 national public health, 28 regionals including you know three of the top 10 hospitals in the country etc. you know, um, building capacity in that. 8, nine years as producers, 21 years as trainers. And when you train, you're doing yourself out of business. Just so that you know, we created an alumni base of 14,000 people who became expert in this. And as they fanned out, you know, were running or have run most of the the leading players in the country. >> What makes you most proud of being a Jew? as I think of Jews altogether. I mean, what I just love going to the Nobel Prize stat. I you know, we're like less than 1% of the world's population and 23% of the Nobel prizes. You know, you you got to just jump to something like that. I mean, the values are, you know, tikam is a is a basic value of us expected to repair the world, whether that's by giving or doing, you know, that's, you know, got to be top of mind continually. I'm very proud of that. >> Think back to when you were 15. >> Yeah. >> Um and looking back on those seven years in the orphanage or whatever, six years. >> Seven years in the orphanage. >> What do you know now that you wish you knew then? >> Well, first of all, I would say have faith. It will it will be okay. I would say it's going to be okay because you know when you're alone and there are no adults that you're the priority of you know there's no one's focused on you right you're not being you're being raised in a group in an institution um you not realize that right and it would calm you down a little bit would have probably been a calmer more measured person what what do you want to tell our 70 to 80,000 and young professionals, students all around the world, what do you want to tell them? What's one message you would want to leave them with? >> So, I'm going to reiterate one point and that is um strategy is overvalued and opportunity is undervalued. Get in there and pick up whatever it is and and dive in wholeheartedly and do it. You don't know where it's going to lead. We use my story where I'm getting a $9,000 grant to clean up 12 community parks. The next thing I'm in 23 cities and states with a training program working with government agencies and doing a national competition to incentivize every kid in the country involved in summer cleanup work. You don't know where things are going to take you. A walk-athon that you never heard of. There you go. Next thing you know, you're running a, you know, you've you've been the main catalyst in the growth and development of a two billion dollar industry. Something you never thought of or heard of before and there you are. Opportunities. Get in. Don't think you have to be the smartest person in the world plotting your life out perfectly well educationally where you go and every other which way. No, things will work out right. Um God has a plan. Get in there. Work hard. Stay focused. Don't make up your mind every two minutes whether you like it. Do it. Get the job done. Participate wholeheartedly. Second bit of advice, life is a contact sport. Don't do what I did, which is wait until my late 30s to get my first mentor. Don't do that now. Go out there right now. Look for a mentor while you're in college. Look for a mentor in that first job or two. Me, it took all the way to my late 30s before I connected with a couple of older men who were very successful in business. Probably three of them that I can think of. And and there's it's like an invaluable it's an invaluable thing. Right now I think I'm mentoring between 14 and 17 kids. I mean which because this generation the younger generations have a really good sense you know they've kind of grown up learning this whereas someone as old as I am it really wasn't you know thought of talked of etc back then and mind you what do I have now at my old age I have an amii mentor [laughter] and so I have a for the last three years I have it's invaluable I mean it's priceless sort of mentorship I'm I'm getting from Rabbi Mendy Gould who's just fantastic you know He's even so smart, by the way. I understand he's an educated man and, you know, a teacher, philosopher, whatever. He's pretty good at business, you [laughter] know, I put business problems out and you can't imagine how this guy can solve them, you know, it's sort of a wonderful thing. So, he's like an all-purpose mentor, you know, it's a personal religious one shopping. No kidding. It's incredible. Stephen, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for sharing about your life. super inspirational and upbeat and uh just wanted to give you a little blessing here that you should continue to be successful and find the happiness that you described. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for listening to Jewish Grit and Ol mentorship podcast. At Ol mentorship, we believe that everyone needs a mentor. What better way is there to tap into your personal and professional potential than with a Jewish mentor at your side. Learn more at olam.org/metorship. Don't forget to keep listening on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.