At the office of Brooklyn-based Blankets of Hope, a nonprofit that provides blankets to people experiencing homelessness and also teaches young people kindness and empathy, co-founder Nick Fio '14 seems the embodiment of positivity. He is warm and welcoming, effortlessly drops inspirational quotes without sounding pretentious and his email signature closes with the phrase "love always."  

A cynic might think his persona is an act designed to cast him in a flattering light. But to understand what his real motivation might be, one only needs to glance at the tattoo on his left forearm or notice the sign hanging on the office wall; they both read "Memento Mori" — Latin for "Remember You Die."  

It's a startling contrast to his sunny demeanor, but perhaps it's the exact message he needed in order to leave a secure career at a Fortune 100 company and to launch a nonprofit with his younger brother, who also quit a promising start-up job. Or maybe that death mantra was a required reminder after his life was upended by a sudden and brutal act of violence.

Football changed everything.

"I was a small, chubby Italian kid," recalls Fio on joining the Fort Hamilton Tigers in 2006, his high school football team. "I played soccer, so I was [made] a kicker. But I always wanted to be more than a kicker." Motivated, Fio threw himself into his role as “the kicker guy” with unbridled intensity. Soon, others took notice.

"He was tough. He was intelligent and he bled blue for Fort Hamilton," says Dominick Spinelli, the new offensive line coach at the time. "I made a reference to the head coach that I actually thought this kid, Nicky, could be our center … I said 'Coach, I really see a whole lot in this kid.'"

The gamble paid off: The team garnered back-to-back undefeated regular seasons and, in his senior year, Fio was named to the NYC All-City team as a center and kicker. He says the act of kindness that Coach Spinelli showed — by believing in him — changed his life.  

"I think it gave me confidence to pursue things that maybe I didn't think I was capable of at first," Fio says. "Sometimes the belief [of] someone outside of you can really propel you to be your greatest."

At UAlbany, Fio could have chased greatness as a walk-on kicker for the Great Danes but decided to change course. "I loved the game of football, but I realized my passion for kicking wasn't really there. I made the strategic decision to stop pursuing that goal and shifted my focus towards my academic and social life instead." As he did on the football field, Fio made his presence felt in the classroom.

"It is not easy to forget individuals with his energy, enthusiasm, intellect, empathy and interpersonal skills," says Raymond Van Ness, professor of accounting. "I have a Hall of Fame for some of my most outstanding students and Nick is a prominent member of that Hall Fame."

Fio graduated summa cum laude with a degree in accounting and business management, but his academic success was a daily battle for reasons even he couldn't understand. "I struggled a lot in school," he says, recalling how he had to rewrite PowerPoint slides by hand so that his brain could register them. After college, Fio was diagnosed as dyslexic. For him, it was a relief to realize that he was not dumb, the label he had given himself. "I realized that, yes, I'm different but that difference makes me see things that other people can't see."  

No one could see what would happen next.

On a Sunday afternoon in 2015, Fio, living back in Brooklyn, was playing in a casual football league with friends when he was sucker-punched and knocked unconscious by an irate opposing player. Upon waking, he realized the assault had split his jaw in half. He endured a four-hour surgery to wire his mouth shut.  

"I'm going to make something of this situation," he promised himself, remembering lessons of forgiveness and resilience learned from his parents. During the next three months of recovery, unable to speak and on leave from work, Fio asked himself big questions: "Why am I here? What am I meant to do with my life?"

The answers found him.

In 2016, during a hot and crowded subway commute into their Manhattan workplaces, the Fio brothers — surveying the crowd of seemingly uninspired workers heading to what they imagined were unfulfilling jobs — vowed that this could not be their future.  

"I turned to Nick and said, 'Let's just quit our jobs," says Mike in a TEDx Talk video from 2022. For the older Fio, still searching for meaning a year after the assault, it was worth the risk; he was in. To their hardworking immigrant parents, however, the decision seemed fraught.

"I was really shocked by their decision and actually very worried about their future," said their mother, Enza, via email. "They both had really good jobs at the time, and they were making a very comfortable salary with great potential for promotions."  

But for her sons, the job security and perks were illusions, after having witnessed as kids, the shock to the family when their mother was laid off from a company after 29 years of service. "I'll never forget my mom's reaction," says Fio. "She sat down, looked at all of us, and she just said, 'It's going to be completely OK.' And I think that was the greatest lesson that she passed on to us."

Fio and his brother applied the lesson repeatedly as they took their "leap of faith" as first-time entrepreneurs. Months of failed ideas, depleted bank accounts and crushing anxieties left them more depressed than they were on that subway ride six months prior. Something had to change.

On one sleepless winter's night, Fio couldn't shake a memory of a homeless man he used to regularly pass while walking to his corporate job. Day after day, despite wanting to help, he did nothing. A voice in his head spurred him to action by asking, "If not now, when?" That night, he started a GoFundMe page to raise money to purchase blankets for people living on the streets of New York City.

"It was just something to get our minds off of our failure."

One weekend, the Fios, along with their girlfriends and their older sister, hit the streets of New York to hand out 100 blankets with handwritten letters of encouragement. For all, it was a deeply fulfilling experience.

"We felt, firsthand, the magic of giving. To see these individuals we were interacting with go from sad to smiling — from hopeless to hopeful — just absolutely lit us up inside," Fio says in their TED video. They made their own video of the outing and posted it to Facebook to share the impact that their supporters had made possible.

It could have been the end of it, except the video caught the eye of successful venture capitalist Todd Chaffee and his Noblelight Foundation. The foundation's mission, stated on its website, is to "find, support and celebrate the social entrepreneurs at the frontier of positive socioeconomic and environmental change. Doctors Without Borders, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund are among the organizations Noblelight supports.  

After contacting the Fio brothers and listening to their pitch for a nonprofit philanthropic organization, Chaffee encouraged them to pursue it full-time and backed the venture. In that moment, Blankets of Hope was born.  

The idea evolved to include partnerships with schools to hold kindness workshops for students. In turn, the students write their own inspiring messages which are attached to the blankets and distributed to a homeless shelter in their communities. To date, more than 150,000 students in 45 states, from kindergarten through high school, have learned and practiced the power of empathy.

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"Our mission at Blankets of Hope is to inspire a global movement of kindness," says Fio, who acknowledges that much more needs to be done. "Every decision we make at the company revolves around that." Today, the brothers are expanding their personal brand to include a weekly book club and a forthcoming podcast.

"Love always"

In addition to the "Memento Mori" tattoo, Nick Fio sports another ink job on his arm that serves as a reminder for how to live his life. It's the number 143 — a tribute to his personal hero and international icon of kindness, Fred Rogers, known to most as "Mister Rogers." The number represents the phrase "I love you" with each numeral corresponding to the number of letters in each word. Rogers would often spread the message in his television broadcasts.  

"He saw how media was being used and thought it could be used in a much more powerful way," says Fio. "And that's something that we're really passionate about. How can we create art that really inspires people … to be the best version of themselves."

A cynic may remain unconvinced, but to meet Nick Fio is to understand that embedded behind his tattoos, his nonprofit and even his email signature is an authentic message that deeply motivates him and it is one that the world seems to need now more than ever: Live fully and spread love.