Padre Umile founded the Sorriso Francescano in Genoa in 1946 to promote numerous charitable activities in favor of children and young people in need, by building two complexes for prompt reception services for minors. Padre Dionisio Mazzucco in 1957 did the same in La Spezia by founding La Casa del Fanciullo.

The Sorriso Francescano is presented today as a socio-educational welfare foundation that addresses child hardship also at the service of migrants, in its locations in Genoa and La Spezia.