Mystery Donor to End $17-million Angel Fund for Poor Detroiters

Detroit Free Press
April 1, 2014

http://www.freep.com/article/20140401/NEWS05/304010021/Detroit-Catholic-Angel-Fund-Mystery-Donor

Someone has been very good to Detroit’s poor people.

That someone — and he is a man, that much was confirmed — has donated $17 million since 2005 to help less fortunate people through the Archdiocese of Detroit and the “Angel Fund.” This person’s money paid for necessities like rent, medicine and overdue utility bills for those who cannot afford such things.

If someone donated $17 million to a local college, that person might well have a stadium named after him.

But the “Angel” does not want to be known.

“It’s an anonymous donor,” said Msgr. Michael Bugarin, an archdiocesan official, adding that the donor’s philanthropy was known to his family. “It’s extraordinary, the level of generosity this family has gone through since the inception of the Angel Fund.”

But now, just several weeks after the Angel Fund’s existence was publicly revealed because of alleged fraud by a Detroit priest, the Free Press has learned the fund is ending April 30.

Whoever he is, the donor decided that 2014 will be the 10th and final year of the Angel Fund, Bugarin said. The donor’s decision had nothing to do with the alleged fraud, Bugarin said, and the donor was clear from the Angel Fund’s inception “that it didn’t have a perpetual shelf life.”

The donor said that his “family philanthropic plans had shifted,” Bugarin said in an e-mail Friday, adding that his family members “still have great concerns for helping the poor of Detroit.”

Parish pastors were notified in a March 18 letter that Angel Fund allotments they’ve received must be used by April 30 and that unspent funds are to be returned to the archdiocese for other charity requests. Archdiocese officials said the donor, who has a long record of Catholic philanthropy, plans to contribute in other unspecified ways.

The fund’s end “cuts back seriously on what we can do,” Sister Jolene Van Handel, a pastoral minister at Detroit’s Nativity Catholic Church, said Friday. Since early 2013, the parish has distributed $42,000 in Angel Fund grants to needy people in its east-side neighborhood.

“We are very grateful for what he’s done. I wish he could see the faces and the hugs we get. There are people who are very grateful that they have a house with heat and lights ... because of the Angel Fund,” Van Handel said.

Free Press reporters poked around to find the donor, and perhaps narrowed the possibilities from a list of well-known, wealthy metro Detroiters with Catholic roots.

Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza who started the Catholic Ave Maria University, is not the donor, his people said.

Manuel (Matty) Moroun, the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge and 1945 graduate of University of Detroit High School, apparently is not either.

And Art Van Elslander, founder of ArtVan Furniture and a big donor to Catholic charities? No. Not him either.

The Angel Fund’s existence was revealed to the general public in February, after a Detroit priest, the Rev. Timothy Kane, 58, was charged with six fraud-related felonies for allegedly pilfering from the fund. Kane, who served at several parishes in Detroit and Highland Park, was allegedly aided by a woman named Dorreca Marvie Brewer. Kane and Brewer, 35, of Jackson waived their rights to preliminary hearings on the charges March 20 and were ordered to stand trial. A date has not been set.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Kane conspired with Brewer from about July 2008 to June 2011 to fill out false applications for grants from the Angel Fund. The fraud involved a sum between $1,000 and $20,000, according to the charges.

The archdiocese froze the program from November 2012 to April 2013 to do an internal audit, a few months after officials learned of the Kane case, Bugarin said. He said he could not disclose how the archdiocese found out about the alleged theft.

Even after the discovery, “the donor family was very insistent that we don’t add a lot of bureaucracy to the whole endeavor,” said Bugarin. “That defeated the purpose for which the family gave the money. They wanted to keep it very, very simple.”

But the alleged theft did not stop the Angel Fund program, Bugarin said.

“The donor was disappointed, as we were,” Bugarin said. “But their intent was that they had to continue to do what they did. This was not going to stop them.”

The fund is designed so that quick cash is readily available to pastors in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck, at about 60 Catholic parishes. Recently, a few churches in Pontiac, Ecorse, Hazel Park, North Branch and Port Huron were added. The donor believed money should be accessible to help those who need it in dire circumstances. People who needed money were vetted by pastors or parish staff. If the pastors are satisfied, they will cut a check directly to a third party to pay an outstanding bill or, occasionally, hand cash to the recipient.

There are few regulations involved in recording the donations. Pastors said they write down the recipient’s name and keep a tally, because there is a limit to the amount someone can get. Today, that limit is $2,500 to any given recipient per year. The grants can’t be used for school tuition. Nearly 10,000 people have received help from the fund since 2005, archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath said.

“The archdiocese never asked for the creation of an Angel Fund,” McGrath said. “It was the idea of the donor family.”

Bugarin, pastor of St. Joan of Arc parish in St. Clair Shores, said he learned of the Angel Fund’s existence in July 2012, when the archdiocese found out about the apparent theft. Bugarin heads up discipline for the archdiocese as the archbishop’s Delegate for Cases Involving Clergy Misconduct.

“It was a surprise to me, and I didn’t know it until I started working the investigation. The guys in the inner city knew about it,” Bugarin said. “When I learned about it, my reaction was, ‘What a phenomenal gift.’ ”

No fuss, no accolades

Monsignor Michael Bugarin of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in St. Clair Shores oversees the Angel Fund for the Archdiocese of Detroit. He holds letters about help the $17-million charity has given parishes to help poor people in the city. / Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press

“What the donor is doing is the fundamental definition of philanthropy,” said Paul Schervish, a Detroit native, Boston College sociology professor and director of its Center on Wealth and Philanthropy.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said generosity is the primary virtue and the most conducive to happiness, Schervish said.

“It’s a path to happiness for both the recipient and the donor,” he said. “I would look for somebody who prospered in Detroit and is Catholic.”

He estimated there are about 500 Catholic households in the Detroit metro area that have a checkbook big enough to underwrite the Angel Fund. One possible reason for the donor’s decision to end the fund, Schervish said, is because the publicity undermined the fund’s under-the-radar service.

The Rev. Robert Scullin, the pastor of Gesu Parish in northwest Detroit, said he’s approved 37 requests for Angel Fund grants since mid-summer 2013. The requests ranged from $60 for someone who needed bus fare to attend a funeral in Toledo to more than $2,000 to help a family with young children pay for a new furnace.

“And, there’s always car repairs, because your car is your life in Detroit,” Scullin said. He meets with the folks doing the asking and strives to be courteous. Whatever the situation, he stresses that the money is for emergency situations and should not be considered a regular go-to source. He asks for identification, or an overdue bill.

“It’s really hard to ask for help,” Scullin said. “The person feels really embarrassed and less successful. I try to make it simple, straightforward and easy.”

When Scullin judges a request as legitimate and worthy, he sometimes says a little prayer with the recipient and asks them to do the same.

“I want you to know where this came from,” Scullin said he tells them, adding, “This isn’t my money. This isn’t the church’s money. It came from a very generous person, and they’ve been blessed, and they want to return the blessing.”

“However you pray,” Scullin said he tells them, “I want you to say a prayer for this person.”

Other pastors said they also lead prayers regularly for the donor during mass.

The Angel Fund's existence was revealed to the general public in February, after a Detroit priest, the Rev. Timothy Kane, 58, was charged with six fraud-related felonies for allegedly pilfering from the fund.

Scullin said the Angel Fund guidelines ask the parish to record the recipient’s name, address and grant amount, and not the reason for the grant. The anonymous donor accepts the risks of few-strings-attached generosity, as does Scullin.

“I’d much rather make a mistake and be played,” Scullin said, “than be a hard guy.”

At Christ the King Parish in northwest Detroit, the Rev. Victor Clore said the parish disbursed nearly $50,000 in Angel Fund money in the last nine months. The parish covers a wide swath of northwest Detroit, including the impoverished Brightmoor neighborhood.

“This helps you really be with the poor. ... It’s the church responding to those who are really down and out,” Clore said. “The last couple years have been so desperate for so many.”

At St. Hyacinth near the General Motors Poletown plant, secretary Darlene Zabrzenski remembers handing out some of the donated money to people who needed it. The money helped one young woman who was beaten by burglars in her home. The pastor approved a payment, and Zabrzenski gave the woman a check.

“To this day, the look on that young woman’s face and the tears and the thankfulness,” Zabrzenski said. “The ones that are giving the money, I don’t think they really know the good that they are doing.”

At SS. Andrew and Benedict in southwest Detroit, the Rev. Edward Zaorski said he has been distributing help from the Angel Fund since its inception. Zaorski said he appreciates the trust the donor placed in pastors.

“I think he’s living the gospel message,” Zaorski said. “Even as we look at the Lenten season, one of our first scriptures is don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Don’t boast. I think the man personifies Christian stewardship and gospel values.”

Contact Jim Schaefer: 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com. Contact Patricia Montemurri: 313-223-4538 or pmontemurri@freepress.com.