April 1 , 2009

Poitier To Fundraisers With Love

By Michele Donohue

Sidney Poitier thanked the audience at the Association of Fundraising Professionals international fundraising conference for all the work they do within the sector at Tuesday’s plenary session. Work that, without which, Poitier said the world would be “inhospitable, less humane and infinitely less hopeful than we need it to be for our mutual, ongoing survival.”
The 82-year old Academy Award-winning actor starred in films such as “Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner” and “To Sir, With Love.” He shared snapshots of his life and noted how philanthropy is intertwined in his youth before going on to share the silver screen with other movie legends, such as Spencer Tracy and James Gardner.  

Poitier said trauma “impacted my life in every severity,” beginning at his birth. He was born two months prematurely in Miami, Florida and the family resigned to the fact that Poitier wouldn’t survive after birth. His own father visited an undertaker the next day. But Poitier’s mother, Evelyn, believed he would pull through.

After that experience, the family returned to their home of Cats Island in the Bahamas where Poitier’s parents were tomato farmers. Poitier, the last of seven children, grew up in a home with no electricity or running water.  He recounted tales of his childhood getting into scraps of trouble, such as stealing corn from a nearby farm with friends, and the discipline his mother tried to instill with her “whap, whap method,” according to Poitier.  “Bit-by-bit, one learns. Bit-by-bit, one pays,” he said.

Poitier was sent at age 15 to live in Miami with an older brother. By 17, he was in homeless in New York City and arrested for vagrancy for sleeping in Penn Station. It was after he was released that Poitier said he had one of his first experiences with philanthropy.

One of the officers followed Poitier after leaving the station and suggested he go to an orphanage run by Catholic nuns in Brooklyn and gave him some money. Poitier said he wished he could thank the officer for “not only for the 50 cents and the suggestion – but for what was in his heart when he followed me.” He stayed in the orphanage for two weeks and then decided to join the United States Army – and never was homeless again.

“Philanthropy has had a considerable impact on my life,” said Poitier. And it took different forms for him – from meals distributed from The American Red Cross to a waiter Poitier worked with at the same restaurant, who dedicated time after shifts to teach Poitier to read better.

Poitier encouraged fundraisers to preserver through the challenging economic time. “It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been knockdown,” he said. “It matters what you do with your time after you get up.”