U R My Sunshine Gala Raises Funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Johna and Nancy Micheletti with family. Photo by CD Film and Photo.

It’s a nor’easter, the first of the year in Rhode Island, and I’m sitting under a tent at a sold-out event, one for a good cause. Auction items create a barrier between the dozens of tables in the back and the balloon arch donned entrance in the front. I see the splatters of drops dripping down on the tent from the rain outside, but I’m more focused on the man at the microphone, John Micheletti.

“Every single person in here has a story,” he says. “If you go out and tell your stories, it can impact people.”

I begin clapping and cheering, overcome with excitement, only to realize the hundreds of other people under the tent with me are doing the same thing.

This is the U R My Sunshine Gala, a fundraising event hosted at the Crown Plaza in Warwick that first took place last year. U R My Sunshine is an organization created in honor of Jaclyn Bagdasarian and Joseph Pelosi Sr., who both passed away from cancer just three months apart. Jaclyn was the daughter of John and Pelosi Sr. was the father-in-law of Johns other daughter. During the first Christmas without Jaclyn while processing their grief, Micheletti, his wife Nancy and their daughters had the idea to celebrate the life of Jaclyn beyond a funeral.

“At Christmas time I just felt the sorrow and sadness and just how much we all missed her,” says Nancy. “I thought, you know what? I think we need to have a party to celebrate her life. We had been to galas before that raise funds for causes, so we decided to do that. We thought maybe it’ll go on year after year or maybe it’ll just be this one year. Either way we owed it to the people who loved her.”

There was little Jaclyn loved more than a good party, having even worked as an event planner after college. With Pelosi Sr. passing so close after Jaclyn, creating the organization in both of their names was a no brainer. Early in her life Jaclyn lost her mother to breast cancer and took on a maternal role for her sister and future half-sisters after John remarried Nancy. Jaclyn would sing to the girls each night and there was one song that she sang more than the others, the lullaby “You are My Sunshine.” It wasn’t even a thought in Nancy and Johns minds what to call the organization, they knew U R My Sunshine was the right name.

Silent auction items.

The first gala last year took place at the Crown Plaza and was a success, raising over $32,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This year the event took place at the same location but managed to raise over $60,000 for St. Jude.

Despite the storm raging outside, the gala didn’t cancel. John made the last-minute decision to bring in a valet service to ensure the black tie and formally dressed attendees didn’t get wet or windblown when arriving. The atmosphere inside was warm and bright, just like sunshine. Brass Attack played well known covers delighting the packed audience on the dance floor.

Silent auction items included everything from autographs from Taylor Swift and Jerry Seinfeld to kick boxing passes and Lilly Pulitzer bundles. Paddles were raised during the live auction which featured hot prizes like a multi-day trip to Indianapolis for the Indy 500. The Micheletti’s leaned on community to help acquire some of the most sought-after items.

“For the Steve Schirripa autographs and books, all we did was ask around. Steve Schirripa also used to frequent the restaurant in New York that Jaclyn worked at,” says John. “We reached out to some people we know and the next thing you know Steve invited us down to his house and gave us a bunch of books and pictures and signed them all. When you’ve got people around you, things just work out.”

Attendees dancing to Brass Attack.

It always comes down to community, and the Micheletti’s seem to have an army around them. The pairs next move is for those without much family or support around them, who are still going through the tough times brought on by cancer. The initiative, tentatively dubbed the Jack and Joes House, would help bring resources to those who need treatment outside of Rhode Island and would set them up with housing and transportation.

“Jaclyn spent nine months in Texas receiving treatment and had we not had the financial and community support, it would have been very different,” says John. “We want to help people who didn’t have the same resources as us.”

John Micheletti playing guitar during the dance portion of the night.

While this new initiative is in the future, the organizations original mission of raising funds for cancer research continues. Cancer has taken a lot from the Micheletti’s, but creating the U R My Sunshine foundation has only expanded their community and helped others feel less lonely about their diagnoses. For them, that was the goal all along.

“At the event, there wasn’t one person in the room that somehow in some way hasn’t been touched by cancer,” says John. “That’s what this organization is all about; impacting people but motivating other people to use their stories to create change. Not even a nor’easter could stop that.”

To learn more about the U R My Sunshine Foundation, visit their website here.