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Updated February 21, 2011
Unreported or under-reported news stories about the Save-A-Life Foundation Click here to read print & broadcast exposes about the Chicago-area Save-A-Life Foundation which have appeared since November 2006. The following stories - each of which implicates powerful public officials and institutions - have yet to be reported.
Now that Save-A-Life is reportedly under investigation by IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan and, based on this November 8, 2010 letter from the Department of Human Services, appears to be the subject of a federal investigation, will these matters finally be brought to public attention by the media?
The sequence and numbering is random and not intended to suggest relative newsworthiness.
1) Save-A-Life's training claims are hokum; so where did the million$ go? According to the Chicago Tribune:
(Carol) Spizzirri launched a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching children emergency response techniques, raising at least $8.6 million in federal and state grants for her Save-A-Life Foundation. Firefighters and paramedics were recruited to offer instruction on how to apply CPR and stop bleeding and choking, said Spizzirri, who estimates 2 million children took the classes, many of them from the Chicago Public Schools.
Similar extravagent claims about training hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Chicago Public Schools students helped SALF acquire millions in state, federal, and corporate grants. The Chicago program was the centerpiece of Save-A-Life's claims. (See item 6 below.) Meanwhile school records show that at best a few hundred students may have been trained and that most of Save-A-Life's other training programs appear to be fabricated. So what happened to the millions in tax dollars and private funding?
2) SALF's phantom National Guard partnership. A former company director says Save-A-Life received $1 million in federal funds from New Hampshire faith-based subcontractor Dare Mighty Things Inc. for a nationwide National Guard first aid training program. No records apparently exist. For more, click here and here.
3) What happened to $3.3 million the CDC gave to Save-A-Life? A fraudulent grant application signed by Carol Spizzirri; follow-up reports filled with false claims; Save-A-Life's treasurer is a full time Atlanta-based Deputy Director at the CDC and was once in charge of the grants program that funded SALF. A November 8, 2010 letter from the Department of Health and Human Services states the matter has been referred to the CDC for review. Click here to get started.
4) Incompetence or cover-up at FEMA? Since 2003, Save-A-Life was a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Records prove that since November 2006, top FEMA officials knew about fraud at the foundation but allowed SALF to fundraise and promote itself under the FEMA banner until September 2009, when the organization filed for voluntary dissolution. In 2009, when the information was brought to the attention of FEMA Secretary Janet Napolitano, she failed to respond to multiple inquiries.
5) Save-A-Life's phantom first aid training program in the Chicago Public Schools. According to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), the Chicago Publics Schools (CPS) was their great success story. Over the years, Save-A-Life claimed to have trained hundreds of thousands, if not millions of students at hundreds of Chicago Schools and received millions in state and federal funding to do so.But the only SALF training records in CPS files are a skimpy 22 invoices from 2000-2007 showing that at best a few hundred people may have received training. So what happened to the money?
The only CPS employees who appear to have been associated with Save-A-Life are these three executives: Former CPS CEO Arne Duncan, Paul Vallas (Duncan's predecessor as CEO), and former Chicago Board of Education president Gery Chico who, according to Save-A-Life, was a member of their Board of Directors.
The following blog items include supporting documents and public letters sent by Texas political writer Lee Cary to Gery Chico, Paul Vallas, and educator Carlos Azcoitia, a former Save-A-Life board member. As of February 1, 2011, Cary has only received a response from Azcoitia, who replied, "I agree that if there is any suspicion of financial impropriety, it should be investigated thoroughly." (Click here to read.) Cary may be contacted via e-mail at Lee.Cary@att.net
11/30/10: Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico asked about Save-A-Life Foundation investigation(s)
12/6/10: Schools CEO Paul Vallas asked about his 10-year association, promotion of the Save-A-Life Foundation
1/27/11: Are these documents the reason Gery Chico won't answer questions about the Save-A-Life Foundation?
1/5/11: Fraud whistleblower (Peter Heimlich) asks Chicago Schools Inspector General to review Save-A-Life/Ronald McDonald House program
2/7/11, Since her husband Gery is apparently hiding, Lee Cary asks Sunny Chico about her ties to SALF
2/17/11: Gery Chico Save A Life Foundation Connection: What Was His Role At Troubled Charity? by Will Guzzardi, Huffington Post
According to documents obtained by Huffington Post Chicago, mayoral candidate Gery Chico appears to have been closely involved with a scandal-plagued high-profile charity.
Though the exact details of Chico's involvement with the now-shuttered Save A Life Foundation are not yet known, documents state that he was on the foundation's board of directors near the height of its alleged fraudulent activity. Puzzlingly, in the face of those documents, the Chico campaign has persistently denied that he was ever on the board.
...Save A Life lashed out with defamation lawsuits that ultimately failed, as did the charity itself, which shut its doors in the summer of 2009.The collapse of the foundation was politically uncomfortable for a number of major figures in Illinois, from President Barack Obama to now-Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who were connected to it in some way.
