ADAM CARTER FOUNDATION
PAINTING AND DELIVERING PORTRAITS IN OIL TO FAMILIES WHO HAVE LOST A CHILD TO CANCER
The Story
More than a decade ago, Mike Bellotti used his hands to score drug deals. It got him a lengthy rap sheet and 10 years in a federal prison. Today, the 34-year-old Bloomington native uses the same hands to create a lasting monument to families of children who have died of cancer.
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“I know I hurt people and had an effect on their lives in a negative way,” Bellotti said of his years as a methamphetamine dealer. “This is just a small way of me trying to give back.”
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That small way is a unique partnership with his aunt, his mother and a former prison-camp cellmate who lives in Florida. Bellotti is the artistic force behind the Adam Carter Foundation, named in honor of an 18-year-old cousin who died of leukemia while Bellotti was serving time in a federal lockup in Duluth.
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The foundation selects a child through word of mouth or on sites such as CaringBridge. Through family friends or other means, a favorite or defining picture of the child is found, without the parents’ knowledge. The picture is then sent to Bellotti, who replicates it on an oil canvas.
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Mary Carter, Bellotti’s aunt, and his mother, Diana Williams, then deliver the framed portrait — unannounced — to the family. Bellotti’s former bunkmate, Frederick Morgenstern, writes the narrative that accompanies the paintings.
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Adam Carter
His aunt’s son, his cousin, died Feb. 23, 2006, after a three-year ordeal with leukemia. He had graduated with his senior class months earlier. Christmas was approaching, and Williams asked her imprisoned son if he could do a portrait of Adam Carter from a graduation picture she would send to him. Moved by the request, he shipped off the portrait.
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Mary Carter unwrapped the gift on Christmas Day. She saw Adam staring back at her. She broke down in tears.
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“I love looking at Adam’s painting every day,” Carter said. “Sometimes I smile at him, sometimes I shake my finger at him for some of the silly things he and his friends used to do, and sometimes I just let a tear fall and tell him I miss him so much.”
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