unwillingly and where they all participate support community's expenses working as junk dealers. The Casa dello scugnizzo offered hospitality, boarding, education and moral support to the young and homeless, taking the place of the family. Within a few months with the help of public charities, in a few the boys resumed their schooling and professional training. «...Mario is an uncommon priest, who becomes a street urchin “like them” by taking off his talar, when the Little Brothers of Charles de Foucauld and their experience of incarnation is still in the future. And Mario is a peculiar priest, who lives “with them” to accompany them towards freedom, when the theology of liberation is yet to be practiced. And all this when the churches of the world, catholic and protestant, at their best operate “for them”. » Giuliana Martirani, foreword of Marciapiedi, Edizioni La Meridiana, Molfetta, 1995. The Casa dello scugnizzo Between 1951 and 1969, Casa dello scugnizzo was not only the physical location providing assistance and support to the street urchins but more importantly it was a network of committees and voluntary groups, distributed throughout Europe and The United States and the fund-raising carried out by the community of Italian, English, American, Canadian, Australian, French, German, Belgian, and Dutch voluntary groups. This way of working enhanced Father Borrelli's reputation and his story was featured in the American magazine Reader's Digest, translated in more than 12 languages, spreads his story around the world. In 1957, Children of the Sun, the biographic novel of Father Borrelli's undertakings written by Morris West, increased his popularity in the Anglophile. In 1958, the film Il bacio del sole (aka Il Bacio del Sole-Don Vesuvio), took inspiration from Mario's venture among the street urchins, and was released at the cinema and distributed throughout Europe. The English broadcasting ITV Television Playhouse produced a biographical television series entitled “Children of the sun”. In the late 1950s a number of children from Casa dello scugnizzo were enabled to spend some time with host families in Germany and the UK to broaden their horizons. A small number of these children returned to their host families in the following years spending several months with them. This initiative drew the attention of the BBC to the work of Father Borelli and he was the subject of a half-hour television programme in the "This is your Life" series broadcast in 1961. During the 1960s,