The CURE Board of Directors

Mary Sansone
Founder and organizer of CIAO (Congress of Italian Americans Organization, Inc.), Mary C. Sansone has been the organizations Executive Director since 1970. CIAO is committed to forming coalitions that promote racial harmony and supporting all causes that strengthen human rights. Through the years, Ms. Sansone has been dedicated to her work, succeeding in developing 22 programs geared towards helping the poor. She has assisted people with their problems regardless of color, creed, or race.

In 1988, Ms. Sansone and a number of concerned citizens met and formed CURE. In 1976, the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination of Sacco and Venzetti, she was responsible for organizing a group of people of all colors and creeds to urge Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts to review the case. This effort resulted in a Proclamation issued in March 1977 which said that "The trial and execution of Sacco and Venzetti should serve and remind all civilized people of the constant need to guard against our susceptibility to prejudice, our intolerance of unorthodox ideas, and failure to defend." In 1971, together with the late Bayard Rustin and Msgr. Geno Barone, she helped form the first coalition of Blacks, Latinos and Italians.

Ms. Sansone is on the Advisory Board of the New York State Division of Human Rights, the New York State Division of Women and several other organizations.

Married to Zachary in 1949, they have two children, Carmela and Ralph, and two grandchildren, Gene-Paul and Zachary.