The Cheerful Giver: John Scarpa an Entrepreneur Turned Philanthropist
Avalon summer resident John Scarpa with one of the many educational and health-care buildings that bear the Scarpa name.
Gifted entrepreneur and summertime Avalon resident John Scarpa spends many hours these days enriching the lives of others through his John F. Scarpa Foundation.
The cheerful giver says that 70 to 80% of his time is now spent in philanthropy. His nonprofit organization supports educational and health-care institutions and more in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When not in Avalon, or traveling to philanthropic-related meetings and events, John and his wife Jana live in Palm Beach, Fla., where the foundation is based.
“I grew up on a farm, a farm on Oak Road in Vineland,” Scarpa muses. Vineland was an agricultural and poultry-producing community in the 1950s, he explains. His parents’ family members were farmers. Scarpa and his four siblings lost their dad, Frank, at an early age due to complications from surgery, he says. Their mother, Edith, became a young widow and single mother. “Mom raised five kids,” he says, adding, “She did a good job of it!”
While he spent some time at Temple University, “I was never a very good student,” Scarpa notes. “I always wanted to do something on my own.” The independent thinker also decided that it would be best to do that “something” while he was still young and single.
Scarpa credits his “strong faith” in God for giving him the will to pursue his dream and make that dream a reality. “I was blessed,” he says without hesitation.
The entrepreneur played an active role in the booming cable television industry in the 1970s. Scarpa brought cable TV first to Bridgeton, then Vineland and then to the Jersey Shore, including Avalon. He also developed cable service on the northern Jersey coast as far as Seaside Heights and Asbury Park. In Pennsylvania, Scarpa introduced cable television to the Hershey area. His office was on Chocolate Avenue, the businessman delights in saying.
“I owed a lot of money then,” Scarpa says. While juggling finances, he purchased radio stations, which he sold before diving into the cellular communication industry in the 1980s.
Scarpa went national by founding and serving as president and chief operating officer of American Cellular Network Corporation.
“I took that company public … on NASDAQ … which was unusual at the time,” he says of his private company that he turned into a publicly traded and owned entity. “It was the first cellular company in the United States to go public,” he adds. Scarpa also built and managed cellphone systems nationwide by co-founding Unitel Wireless Communications Systems, and was among Cellular One Network’s originators.
In 1988, Scarpa made a bundle when he sold his American Cellular Network Corporation to Comcast for $230 million. Shortly thereafter, his mother, who was then in her 90s, had a little talk with him. “Mom said, ‘My friends tell me that you are a millionaire. Are you?’” he recalls. When Scarpa tried to dismiss the question, his mother pressed him until he answered “Yes.” His mother’s next words were: “You don’t need all that money. Take care of your family and help others with it.”
So, the maverick of the cable TV and cellphone communications industries took his mother’s words to heart and created the John F. Scarpa Foundation in 1998. Around that same time, Scarpa met his future wife, he says softly. After working as a flight attendant for 17 years, Vineland native Jana Geraci returned to her hometown to help her parents. Scarpa explains that Jana is a Rone, of Rone Funeral Services in Vineland. Jana’s mom, the late Faustina Rone Geraci, was the first female funeral director in New Jersey, he notes with respect.
Courtesy of John F. Scarpa Foundation contributions – $1 million here or $8 million there or $20 million elsewhere, among other charitable amounts – buildings that meet the educational or health-care needs of people from all walks of life now bear the Scarpa name.
These facilities include: the Edith Favretto Scarpa Arts and Sciences Building at St. Augustine Preparatory School in Richland; the John F. Scarpa Technical Education Center of Cumberland County in Vineland; the Frank and Edith Scarpa Regional Cancer Pavilion at Inspira Medical Center in Vineland; Stockton University’s John F. Scarpa Health Sciences Center on its main Galloway campus and the John F. Scarpa Academic Center on Stockton’s Atlantic City campus; Villanova University’s John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law and the Villanova Law School building now dubbed John F. Scarpa Hall.
When Scarpa talks about these accomplishments, it’s telling. The benefactor says little about himself and a lot about people associated with those establishments that he supports.
Scarpa became aware of St. Augustine Prep through his close friend Father George Riley, O.S.A. Kind and witty Father Riley served the weekend spiritual needs of Catholics on Seven Mile Beach for some 30 years even as he worked full-time in high-profile positions at Villanova University. Scarpa’s friendship with Father Riley and his admiration for St. Augustine’s then-president, the late Father Stephen LaRosa, O.S.A, moved the philanthropist to finance construction of the high school’s Edith Favretto Scarpa Arts and Sciences Building in 1998, Scarpa says. Father La Rosa disciplined students fairly, Scarpa notes. If a student defied school rules, that student was expelled, he declares. “Father LaRosa didn’t care who your kid was!”
When Scarpa spoke to students at St. Augustine several years ago, he learned that the structure in his mother’s name is “still the most popular building on campus,” Scarpa says with pleasure. The building houses a tech center, a library, and space for students to hang out.
Further west, “The tech school [John F. Scarpa Technical Education Center of Cumberland County] does wonders,” Scarpa says enthusiastically. He then talks about the quality of the Tech Center’s programs and the variety of its offerings that shape its high school students into skilled cosmetologists, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, robotics experts, welders and even artistic welders, among other occupations that can be profitable.
The Frank and Edith Scarpa Regional Cancer Pavilion at Inspira Medical Center is another “blessing,” Scarpa muses. “Now people don’t have to drive 90 miles [round trip from Vineland to Philadelphia] for their cancer treatments.” The philanthropist then recounts an incident that moved him deeply. A man approached him one day and said, “You saved my life,” before telling Scarpa that he could never have found enough rides to make those many trips for cancer treatments in Philly, Scarpa says in a voice that slightly quivers.
As for his ventures in support of higher education, “South Jersey is blessed to have Stockton University,” says Scarpa. Stockton nurtures “people who care about their communities,” people like its president, Dr. Harvey Kesselman. Kesselman was in Stockton’s first graduating class, Scarpa notes. Now he leads the university. “It’s remarkable that something like that happens!” the entrepreneur proclaims.
Scarpa’s $8 million endowment to Stockton University is structured so that it “will remain a part of Stockton forever,” says Dan Nugent, the university’s chief development officer and executive director of the university foundation. Such a gift is “a partnership and a major commitment” on Scarpa’s part.
“When you meet John, you realize how much he really wants to help people,” Nugent says. “He is inquisitive. John really wanted to know what the students needed.” And, Scarpa spoke with Stockton’s president, students, faculty and Nugent to find out.
As for his partnership with Villanova University and the John F. Scarpa Center for Entrepreneurship and Law there, “I’m very proud of it,” Scarpa says. “There’s never been an entrepreneur program at a law school. When I started out, lawyers would tell me what I could not do rather than what I could do,” he adds with exasperation. “’Where law meets business,’ that’s our motto” at the center.
Philanthropy “does not stop in the giving,” says the self-starter. Recipient programs need to be watched in order to see that the money is being spent effectively. Law continues to meet business at the center with numerous programs. An entrepreneur in residence program features retired business executives with real-life experience as teachers, Scarpa says enthusiastically. Another initiative offers all Villanova students “who have fantastic ideas for businesses” opportunities to pitch those ideas to “our committee” in order to determine if “we will fund it.”
Indeed, “John is a very generous and down-to-earth individual, one who is approachable and committed to values like friendship, loyalty and helping those in need,” says Madonna Sutter, director of advancement for the Augustinian Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova. Sutter marvels that “friendship with Father Riley is John Scarpa’s only connection to Villanova,” to which his foundation has contributed more than $20 million over the years. In 2021, Scarpa was also instrumental in raising nearly $800,000 for the Fr. George F. Riley, O.S.A., Fund for Augustinian Healthcare. That fund supports aging and ailing friars like his buddy Father Riley.
Scarpa is charitable with both his fortune and his time. In many an address, the tycoon offers words of wisdom in the voice of experience with hopes that more fertile entrepreneurial gardens will grow.
“College can’t teach vision or passion,” he says pensively. “You must also have commitment.” Plus, “confidence in yourself is necessary” for entrepreneurial success.
During a recent address to Villanova Law students, Scarpa told them to look at each other, for they will be competitors. “You must network to get ahead,” said the man who built his lucrative businesses from scratch. “Or as I say, ‘You gotta go out and play in the traffic!’”
