During his gap year between college and graduate school, John Tarantino ’81 was waiting in a lobby for a job interview when he noticed a pretty woman across the room. She turned out to be his competition. “How about we make a deal,” he asked. “The one who gets the job takes the other one out.” She replied: “Where would you like me to take you?”
Tarantino got the job and the date with the woman who would go on to become his wife of forty-five years. Pat, a teacher, “was the most selfless person I’ve ever met,” says Tarantino, an attorney at Adler, Pollock & Sheehan in Providence, RI. When Pat was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2022, she and Tarantino sold their home and donated the proceeds, along with the entirety of Pat’s life insurance, to cancer research.
Amidst establishing the John and Pat Tarantino Charitable Foundation, Tarantino was invited to participate in TEDx, a nonprofit that hosts talks on “ideas worth spreading.” He worked on his talk for four months and attended the mandatory practice sessions, honing the story of his and Pat’s philanthropic work for the Papitto Opportunity Connection (POC), a Rhode Island nonprofit that creates educational opportunities for children impacted by systemic racial injustice.
Weeks before the 2023 TEDxProvidence, the producer called with some bad news: Tarantino’s talk was cancelled. POC had become a platinum sponsor of TEDx, which prohibits talks that promote sponsors. Tarantino offered to write on a different topic. This talk, too, was nearly cancelled when Tarantino attended the practice session and his audience of fellow speakers started crying. The producers suggested the talk was too vulnerable.
“I’m not ashamed of vulnerability,” Tarantino told the producers.
They gave him the go-ahead, and Tarantino gave the talk.
“Redemption Stories” is the tale of two men, a businessman whose life unraveled after he used a racial slur in the boardroom, and a philanthropist who urged the businessman to rebuild his reputation by establishing an educational foundation, something the philanthropist had found solace in doing after a personal loss.
“I don’t believe things are just coincidence. I think things happen for a reason. This was the talk I was supposed to give. And it’s had really positive effects on many others.”
John Tarantino ’81
It wasn’t until the end of the TEDx talk that Tarantino revealed that this was his own story. His point: “You’re not trapped in this moment in time. It’s awful, but you can move forward. You can be redeemed.”
When the talk was posted on YouTube on July 17, 2023, viewers flooded Tarantino with messages of gratitude, and he watched in disbelief as the video’s views soared, from hundreds to thousands, and then into the millions, making “Redemption Stories” the most-viewed TEDx Talk worldwide in 2023. At 11:59 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, the views hit 20 million.
The talk landed Tarantino on the cover of Morocco Forbes and CEO Times magazines, and—more significantly, he says—has raised millions of dollars for cancer research. “I don’t believe things are just coincidence. I think things happen for a reason. This was the talk I was supposed to give. And it’s had really positive effects on many others,” he says. Listeners reach out daily with their own stories of resilience and redemption, and for advice. One of the most memorable interactions with a viewer, he recalls, was an email from a man who asked, “What can I do to be a better husband?”
Tarantino responded, “I can only tell you what I did. I told my wife every morning that I love her madly. If you say that, and mean it, you will be a better husband and a better man.”