A 'Secret Millionaire' spends a week in Newark, gives $150K to city charities

June 01, 2012

By James Queally/The Star-Ledger

Newark  From the former crack den he called home to the bustling street corners where men gathered to talk in the sweltering heat, Scott Jacobs spent a week searching for charities in Newark.

Jacobs lived on just $71.03 — the equivalent of welfare wages for a family of two — during the seven days he spent in the state’s largest city — but his charity hunt last July wasn’t about putting money in his own pocket.

It was about giving something back.

The 53-year-old artist became Newark’s "Secret Millionaire" when he donated nearly $150,000 to three charities as part of the ABC reality series that sends some of the country’s wealthiest people undercover to poverty-stricken areas so they can share their riches with deserving
members of the community.

"It was the most emotional thing I’ve ever done in my life," Jacobs said recently of his experience, which airs Sunday night. "I’ve been very successful, and I know this kind of poverty exists in the U.S., but I’ve never been that close to it before. It was a life changing experience for my daughter and I."

The trip to Newark last summer was a culture shock for both Jacobs and his 20-year-old daughter, Alexa. The two normally wake up in Jacobs’ lavish San Diego mansion, a dream home made possible by his work as the official artist for Harley Davidson Motorcycles and the estates of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Some of Jacobs’ paintings have sold for as much as $145,000.

Jacobs grew up in Cranford, just seven miles from Newark, but the two places seemed worlds apart.

"I think the one thing I do realize now, in all the materials I own, the cars and houses, you realize how unimportant those things are," he said. "When you meet these people, maybe the most important thing they own is a cardboard box to sleep in at night."

For a week, Scott and his daughter toured some of Newark’s most desperate locales, along with the charities they would eventually choose to help. They joined members of the International Youth Council to help clean up Woodland Cemetery, a hotbed for drug activity.

They joined members of the GI Go Fund to help rouse homeless veterans sleeping on sidewalks outside Newark Penn Station, even though they were warned to keep their distance in case anyone they were trying to help was carrying a weapon.

"I was in shock for a couple days," Alexa Jacobs said. "It didn’t really hit me until the last few days we were there, but it was completely different, it definitely took some getting used to.

"I was immediately outside my comfort zone — and scared," she added.

At times, father and daughter became overcome with emotion. Alexa Jacobs said she was stunned to find teenagers supporting their siblings because their parents had died. At one point, she told her father she wished "her tear ducts could be removed because she was sick of crying so much."

Many of the charities are nonprofit organizations that rely on donations. At Glass Roots, a counseling program that hopes to aid troubled youth by allowing them to try their hand at glass blowing, executive director Wesley Sims said charity from people likes Jacobs is crucial for his expensive, but effective, operation.

"When he presented that check for $20,000, my heart jumped," Sims said. "Glass making in general is pretty expensive. Many of the kids, we call our mission kids, couldn’t afford it."

In the year since he left Newark, Jacobs has done his best to keep in touch with the leaders of each charity organization, the people he considers the stars of the program.

"The show is not about me," he said. "The show is about those charities."