"Love Holds Life" (13 kids, Founder has Red Cross connection)
Love Holds Life, Inc. (LHL), was founded March 12, 2012 in Dutchess County, NY, by Richard Senato and Co-Founded by Carmen Senato, as a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization.
Richard J. Senato is focused on giving back.
""I always wanted to help people," said Senato, founder and president of Love Holds Life, a Fishkill-based non-profit that provides financial support to area children with cancer and their families.
Senato grew up in Hopewell Junction, with the aim of becoming a policeman. But after completing high school from the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, Orange County, he switched gears, worked as a bank teller, then clothing salesman. At the same time, he established Senato International, through which he sold health and nutrition products by Amway as a part-time business.
Within a few years, he took advantage of an opportunity in North Carolina to expand his Amway business and moved there. But less than three years later, a bad car accident brought him back to Poughkeepsie to convalesce from serious injuries. Before long, he joined a local construction company in a marketing position and began to volunteer for the American Red Cross of Dutchess County.
"I wanted to give back," Senato said. "I had the time and I had the resources, and I had the ideas. I had a plan."
That, he did. In the two years he volunteered for the organization, he raised some $1,000 a month per his community outreach plan, before moving on to Habitat for Humanity in 2011. Six months later, a friend told him about the Montana family in Patterson, Putnam County, that couldn't meet high medical bills associated with the care of their 11-year-old son, Michael, who had cancer. To help them, Senato established Love Holds Life in March 2012, a non-profit in support of local families whose children have cancer.
"I wanted to make a difference," Senato said. "I wanted to leave a legacy."
Now Senato's full-time venture, Love Holds Life has raised well over $500,000 to date. Of the non-profit's major sponsors are Nesheiwat Builders, Flory's Mobil, Stop & Shop, ShopRite, Sam's Club, A&P and TEG Federal Credit Union. On March 14, Love Holds Life will celebrate its third anniversary with a fund-raiser at Just for Kicks Martial Arts in Fishkill.
"All of our kids are cancer-free," Senato said of the 13 Hudson Valley kids his organization provides financial support, medical and related expenses for in their cancer care…"
https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/money/2015/02/20/young-professional-richard-senato-love-holds-life/23775745/