Don Luigi Ghinelli, founder of the Don Ghinelli Institute which is still active nowadays, was born in Gatteo on May 4th, 1848 and was ordained priest on December 23rd, 1876. He was sent as a chaplain to Sant’Angelo in 1883, where he rent a small four-room house. He hosted there a dozen of kids to steer them towards a job and “to get them off the street, to get them earn their own bread and to direct them to religious and Christian life.” Here the youths did a very simple job: some of them prepared wood sticks for the workers who produced matches, while others manufactured the boxes for storing them. With this work Don Luigi Ghinelli took part in the social movement that has been developed in Romagna in second half of 19th century.
Some years later he moved this small craft workshop of matches to Gatteo, first temporarily in his house, then in a modest one-story building on a plot donated by Maria Ghiselli , a noblewoman from Gatteo. Later the building was extended more and more.
The charity of Don Ghinelli named “Istituto Fanciulli Poveri”, while ignored by the press, was closely followed by the Curia of Cesena. Monsignor Teodoro Cantoni expressed its approval on May 7th, 1888 when he wrote: “In the name of God. We wholeheartedly approve and praise the work indicated above, strongly entrusting it to the piety of all Catholics, while its purpose is very important to us . ”
Don Luigi Ghinelli founded later a straw hats factory, a shoe store (1888) and a cabinetmaking (1890), but all these works had to succumb. Only the typography purchased together with Don Benedetto Bassi in Monza remained active. It was opened since 1891 to print, among other things, the Catholic newspaper “La sveglia della Romagna.”
In 1902 Don Luigi Ghinelli met Don Luigi Guanella and gave to him the already well underway institute. He started the construction of the hospital and the men shelter for elderly and disabled people whose families could not take care of them. The hospital and the shelter were part of the same building in front of the institute. The opening ceremony of this building was made by Monsignor Giovanni Cazzani, the Bishop of Cesena, in 1908.
Works continued with the construction of the building used as female shelter and home for the nuns “Figlie di S. Maria della Provvidenza”, involved in the care of patients.
Don Luigi Ghinelli died on March 19th, 1909.
Today the building bearing his name, enlarged and mostly rebuilt, retains a visible memory of this priest, who lived in the name of love towards humankind by helping the poor, old and sick brothers.
The Don Ghinelli Institute now offers an educational service, rehabilitation and assistance for physically and mentally disables. Within the institute, surrounded by a 6000 square meters park, there are lodgings, gymnasium, workshops, sports facilities, offices and a church. The simple and decorous spaces, were designed on one side to protect the privacy of each guest, and on the other to foster the holding together and the encounter of people.
