S.A.Y. - Mitch Albom Biography

MITCH ALBOM started S.A.Y. Detroit in 2006, as a way of combating homelessness in Detroit. Since then, the charity has raised close to $1 million, all of it distributed or ere-marked to make life easier and more productive for the city's most needy. At Albom's insistence, no salaries or expenses are paid from the funds raised. Every dollar goes directly into a project.

Albom is an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, and radio and television broadcaster. His books have collectively sold over 26 million copies worldwide; have been published in 50 territories and 42 languages around the world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies. He writes a regular syndicated column through the Detroit Free Press, hosts a syndicated radio show, and appears regularly on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters."

In 1995, he re-encountered Morrie Schwartz, a former college professor who was dying of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. His visits with Schwartz would lead to the book "Tuesdays with Morrie", which moved Mitch away from sports writing and began his career as an internationally recognized author.

"Tuesdays with Morrie" is the chronicle of Mitch's time spent with his beloved professor. As a labor of love, Mitch wrote the book to help pay Morrie's medical bills. It spent four years on the New York Times Bestseller list and is now the most successful memoir ever published. His first novel, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," is the most successful US hardcover first adult novel ever. For One More Day, his most recent, debuted at No.1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and spent nine months on the list. In October 2006, "For One More Day" was the first book chosen by Starbucks in the newly launched Book Break Program, which also helped fight illiteracy by donating one dollar from every book sold to Jumpstart.

All three of Albom's best sellers have been turned into successful TV movies. Oprah Winfrey produced the film version of Tuesdays With Morrie in December 1999, starring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria. The film garnered four Emmy awards, including best TV film, director, actor and supporting actor. The critically acclaimed Five People You Meet in Heaven aired on ABC in winter, 2004. Starring Jon Voight, the film was the most watched TV movie of the year, with 19 million viewers. Most recently, Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom''s "For One More Day" aired on ABC in December 2007 and earned Ellen Burstyn a Screen Actors Guild nomination.

Albom wrote the screenplay for both For One More Day and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and is an established playwright, having authored numerous pieces for the theater, including the off-Broadway version of Tuesdays With Morrie (co-written with Jeffrey Hatcher) which has seen over seventy productions across the US and Canada.

He has founded three charities in the metropolitan Detroit area: The Dream Fund, established in 1989, allows disadvantaged children to become involved with the arts. A Time To Help, founded in 1998, brings volunteers together once a month to tackle various projects in Detroit, including staffing shelters, building homes with Habitat for Humanity, and operating meals on wheels programs for the elderly. S.A.Y Detroit is Mitch's most recent effort, is an umbrella program to fund shelters and care for the homeless in his city. He also raises money for literacy projects through a variety of means including his performances with The Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of writers which includes Steven King, Dave Barry, Scott Turrow, Amy Tan and Ridley Pearson. Mitch serves on the boards of various charities and, in 1999, was named National Hospice Organization's Man of the Year.