Since you may be helping to make Francesco Marinosci a tired but happy barber, you should know what has happened since TIME told his story three weeks ago.

By any business standards, his barber shop in The Bronx was a failure. It cleared $15 a week. In the 40 years since he, a boy of 17, left the Italian village of Francavilla Fontana, Francesco had been swallowed up by the city.

But in at least six impoverished towns of Italy Frank's address had become a symbol of hope. Nuns at orphanages spoke almost as if he were a saint; a parish priest blessed him in a manner once reserved for noblemen; villagers gave him the title "King of Barbering Goodness." Reason: he and his wife have lived in near-poverty since World War II that they might send money and 1,200 packages of food and clothes to starving, cold people in Italy.

The word got around. Like lame pilgrims flocking to a shrine, the needy of Francavilla Fontana and surrounding villages scribbled the sad facts of their needs in letters, addressed them to the magic place: "Frank's Barber Shop, 629 Westchester Ave., The Bronx, N.Y."

It was too much for Frank's meager resources. He sadly showed a TIME researcher some 300 letters from needy families, who must wait until he could beg or buy old clothes, get postage money. "You gotta cry," he said. "They're all alike. All in bad shape."

A few hours after the story of his one-man campaign against suffering was read by TIME-readers, things began to happen. Merrill Heatter, of the television show We the People, wired the telephoneless Bronx shop. Accepting Heatter's offer to appear on the March 16 program, Frank resolved to set his__$100 pay aside for more help to Italy. A movie company offered him a bit part as a barber, promised to give his union-scale wages to an Italian orphanage.

Soon, letters postmarked "U.S." appeared among his daily mail from Italy.

Loose bills and checks for $5 to $20 fell out of the envelopes. "Don't bother to answer," wrote one lawyer from Kansas. "The canceled check will tell me you put the money to use."

Frank was too happy not to answer. He got customers, friends and neighbors to help him write letters of thanks to each contributor. When asked, he translated long letters from Italian into English and sent them to people who had clothing for children. To some he explained how to sew packages up in cheesecloth to stop pilferers. He added from his own pocket the $1.65 necessary to rush one contribution by foreign money order to an orphanage. He worked until 2 o'clock most mornings, lost ten pounds.

Soon the grimy envelope of money in his pocket got thick, so he opened a separate bank account. He also bought a little black book in which he listed the name of each contributor, his address and the amount.

The back pages were reserved for the names of TIME-readers who sent him packages of clothing and food. Always, he forwarded the bundles to families that needed them.

Some envelopes contained a dollar or two, but no return address. "No name. No credit," said Frank.

"They don't want no credit. They understand."

The letters and contributions boosted Frank's courage, which after six years of lonely work had been on the wane. "It is a struggle," he said, then dug out a letter from an Air Force major in Texas.

"What you have done," wrote the major, "is an expression of genuine love for your fellow man and not only benefits those in Italy but each one who reads the article in TIME. I am enclosing a token gift for you to use as you see fit, good man."

"Now," said Frank simply, "I do the job."

Cordially yours,

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