January 8 marks the start of Operation Yellow Pieces, the 36th of its name, for the benefit of the Fondation des Hôpitaux de France. An operation born thanks to an American president.
If in France the Yellow Pieces were launched in 1989they have existed for a long time in the United States since they were born there half a century earlier, precisely in 1938, at the initiative of President Franklin Roosevelt. He is the only president in the history of the United States to have served four terms and whose portrait now sits in the place of honor in the Oval Office of the White House, just above the fireplace.
Franklin Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down following an illness, believed to be polio, contracted when he was 39. He therefore decided to create a charity to raise funds to fight against polio which, before the vaccine was discovered to cure it in 1954, affected more than 600,000 children per year around the world.
A campaign imported from the United States
To find the money, comedian Eddie Cantor had the brilliant idea of ask every American to send the White House a dimea 10 ct coin. As a result, 2,680,000 coins, or $268,000, came to the attention of President Roosevelt, whose name became so associated with this coin that since 1946 his face has been on it.
Since then, the March of Dimes has taken place every year and has been extended to the fight against premature births and childhood illnesses. This is how Professor Claude Griscelli discovered it and imported it to France. This professor heads the pediatric immunology department at Necker Hospital.
In 1985, he treated a three-year-old boy suffering from leukemia: the son of journalist Anne Barrère souls here Health in the spotlight on TF1. While talking with her, he suggests launching a sort of March of Dimes to raise funds so that parents can sleep in the hospital with their sick child. Anne Barrère uses her notoriety to create these Yellow Pieces, with a concept a little different from the American model.
9,700 projects saw the light of day
To avoid causing anxiety, they capitalize on the child side more than the hospital side. It was the creative Stéphane Godlewski who came up with the idea of the piggy bank remembering a childhood memory. A big jar in his house where everyone emptied their pockets, these yellow coins of little value which embarrass us more than anything else. At the end of the year, the jar was emptied and the contents donated to good causes. A winning principle since from the first edition, in January 1990, and already with RTL, 300,000 francs, around 60,000 euros were collected.
Today, thanks to these donations, more than 9,700 projects have seen the light of dayfor an amount of approximately 110 million euros. But there is still much to do and the time has come to donate your Yellow Coins for a good cause from today.
All the information on piecesjaunes.fr.
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