Press

"Secret" to Making Kids Smile
Dayton Daily News, February 1, 2005

By Tom Archdeacon

His mug often makes the sports page. He has a weekly show on television and he's pictured on the front of the University of Dayton's basketball media guide. On the UD Arena sideline — where he's always moving, gesturing, emoting — he's a focal point of the crowds that pack the place game after game after game.

More than anyone, Brian Gregory is the face of Flyers' basketball.

Yet, there are times when the UD coach is at his best and he goes totally unnoticed.

That's the secret part of Secret Smiles.

But it's the smiles part that makes Gregory realize some of his most rewarding moments come not with a hoop and a ball, but with the beds and bedding he quietly delivers to a children who have none.

Gregory, and especially his wife Yvette, joined Tracy Janess and her husband and three other area couples to launch Secret Smiles of Dayton, a local charity whose work was initially inspired by Tracy's late sister, Kristy Irvine Ryan.

A UD grad, Kristy was a 30-year-old equities trader for New York-based Sandler O'Neill and Partners. She was working at the banking firm's 104th floor offices in the World Trade Center's South Tower on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew hijacked airliners into her building and the North Tower.

Although she was killed in the attack — as were 66 other Sandler O'Neill employees — her legacy not only has survived, it has flourished.

Along with a successful business woman and a new bride — she'd married just three months earlier— Kristy was a tireless advocate and generous benefactor of impoverished children, battered women and any family in need.

She and Meredith O'Neill Hassett — a Harlem kindergarten teacher who had been her best friend from fourth grade, through their years together at UD, right up to the night before the attacks when they went to dinner together — had begun a small, nonprofit charity in New York. They called it Secret Smiles, Inc. because they and some of their friends helped people anonymously.

A year and a half ago, Janess and three of her friends — Stephanie Geehan, Molly Treese and Leslie Miller — launched the Dayton version of Secret Smiles.

"Although it's the same concept, we're not connected to New York," Janess said. "We work solely in our own (Dayton) community and what we do is more specific."

After conversations with various help agencies in the Miami Valley, especially the Red Cross shelter, she said her group found there was a great need for beds and bedding for children: "So many children are sleeping on floors or sometimes three and four to a bed. The more we got into it, the more we were overwhelmed by the need. It's huge."

She said the reasons are many — from women and their children escaping abusive relationships to families where both parents work jobs at minimum wages or less and can't provide life's necessities.

Soon after Janess and her friends started Secret Smiles of Dayton, the Gregorys joined their ranks.

"Yvette said she loved the idea, especially the simplicity of it," Janess said. "It's just us — just a bunch of volunteers — who are doing this. There's little overhead, so 95 percent of every dollar goes to the community."

While Yvette serves as the group's community relations director, her husband provides the roll-up-the-sleeves, no-fanfare labor. This isn't one of those deals you find so often in sports where a guy simply lends his name to get himself some good ink, but offers up no time or sweat of his own.

"He pulls up to places — often in the evening, usually in neighborhoods that aren't the best — and drops the things off," Janess said. "Nobody knows who he is. He's just the delivery man, the guy who makes kids smile."

The group, Janess said, has given out nearly 200 beds and bedding to needy kids. The effort is funded by donations, a substantial portion of it coming from the five couples themselves.

To raise more money for its work, Secret Smiles is involved in three separate fund-raisers this week.

Before the Flyers' game against Fordham Wednesday at the Arena, Secret Smiles members will be accepting donations alongside UD students who also will collect canned goods — as part of a charity challenge with Xavier students — that will momentarily benefit Secret Smiles.

After the game, Flyers' Feedback radio host Mark Adams — joined by Gregory and his assistant coaches — will run a silent auction for Secret Smiles at Flanagan's Pub.

Friday, Secret Smiles — this time without Gregory's help — is holding a Texas Hold'em Poker Night at the Dayton Country Club. Dinner and the tournament costs $200 and details of the evening can be found on the local charity's website: www.secretsmilesdayton.org

"This is all part of Kristy's legacy," Janess said. "I can only imagine what her life would be now if she had lived. She was doing so much.

"We can't erase what happened. There's still a huge hole in our lives. The first 2½ years were very tough, but we're getting through it. Everyone is healing and wonderful things have happened. Our youngest sister Michelle just got married and our sister Wendy is expecting her fourth child.  And Kristy is always with us."

Tracy's voice caught and for a few seconds she said nothing: "When I leave those families we help, I see her face in those women. Oooh, I'm gonna cry." Her voice wavered again before she finally whispered,. "Hey, it's okay. It's all good now. Kristy's left such an incredible legacy and we're all glad to be a part of it."

Gregory feels that way, too:

"The thing I'm excited about, we're making a difference right here in the community and because it's a small operation without a lot of limelight, we're able to see first-hand the impact you can make.

"It's something to see kids just excited about getting a bed and some bedding. And during all those deliveries, no one's ever recognized me or anything like that and that's the way I want it. It's about nothing more than somebody helping out somebody else.

"That's what we're all supposed to be doing anyway."