Sunday, 18 January 2015 00:00

Pizza Shop, Customers Give Away 8,400 Slices To Philly's Homeless

Written by Robbie Couch | The Huffington Post

Newcomers at Rosa's Fresh Pizza might think the store's owner has an odd obsession with sticky notes. But the plethora of pinks, blues and yellows spanning the restaurant's walls have nothing to do with interior aesthetics and everything to do with uniting a community in caring for its poorest residents.

Mason Wartman, who owns the Philadelphia pizza parlor, is gaining national attention for his unique business model of giving back, NBC 10 News reported. Customers at Rosa's, where a piece of pizza is $1, can choose to buy a slice for a homeless person for just another buck. They're then able to write a heartfelt message on a sticky note and add it to the wall, where those in need who've benefited from the pay it forward pizza have also written responses of gratitude.

"A slice of pizza is a big deal to me," one homeless person at Rosa's said. "Because of Mason, I'm assured of at least one slice of pizza every day."

NPR reported that customers have bought about 8,400 slices of pizza for the homeless over the past nine months.

"This is a super-easy way, a super-efficient way and a super-transparent way to help the homeless," Wartman told the outlet. "Sometimes homeless people buy [slices] for other homeless people."

Wartman's post-its were originally intended to keep track of how many slices were available for hungry customers. But after the number of free slices grew to about 500, his post-it strategy could no longer could keep up with the demand to give back. Wartman now uses the store's register to stay on top of how many slices have been paid for ahead of time by kind customers.

Ellen DeGeneres praised Wartman's good deeds on Tuesday when he stopped in for a segment on her talk show. During his visit, DeGeneres encouraged viewers to visit Rosa's and gave Wartman a check for $10,000 to help run his business.

"A lot of people ... they ask homeless people for directions in my shop," Wartman said on the talk show. "They don't even know that they're communicating and interacting with them as equals. It's really cool to build the community like that."

Watch the full segment on "Ellen".

Link to original article from The Huffington Post

Read 37797 times Last modified on Sunday, 18 January 2015 17:14

Sen. Warren on TPP

TPP Calls

Feed not found.

Latest News

  • Trump administration's voter suppression attempts ahead of midterms are not only 'morally wrong,' they're illegal +

    Trump administration's voter suppression attempts ahead of midterms are not only 'morally wrong,' they're illegal Imagine going to the polls on Election Day and discovering that your ballot could be collected and reviewed by the Read More
  • ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' +

    ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' ACLU Blueprints Offer Vision to Cut US Incarceration Rate in Half by Prioritizing 'People Over Prisons' Read More
  • As Florence Makes Landfall, Poorest Once More Likely to Suffer Most From Storm's Destruction +

    As Florence Makes Landfall, Poorest Once More Likely to Suffer Most From Storm's Destruction "These disasters drag into the light exactly who is already being thrown away," notes Naomi Klein Read More
  • How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. +

    How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. How about some good news? Kansas Democratic Representative advances bill for Native Peoples. Read More
  • How One Dying Man Changed The Debate About The Tax Bill +

    How One Dying Man Changed The Debate About The Tax Bill What mattered was that he showed up — that he put himself in front of the people whose opinions on Read More
  • Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia +

    Democrats Just Won a Major Victory in Virginia On a night of Democratic victories, one of the most significant wins came in Virginia, where the party held onto Read More
  • Repealing the Jim Crow law that keeps 1.5 million Floridians from voting. +

    Repealing the Jim Crow law that keeps 1.5 million Floridians from voting. A seismic political battle that could send shockwaves all the way to the White House was launched last week in Read More
  • Nuclear Weapons: Who Pays, Who Profits? +

    Nuclear Weapons: Who Pays, Who Profits? In an interview with Reuters conducted a month after he took office, Donald Trump asserted that the U.S. had “fallen Read More
  • Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy +

    Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed Read More
  • 1
  • 2

Featured TPP, TITIP and TISA News

  • Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch on the Demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Lame-Duck Session of Congress +

    Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch on the Demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Lame-Duck Session of Congress The news that the White House and Republican congressional leaders have given up on passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is Read More
  • No, Trump Didn’t Kill the TPP — Progressives Did +

    No, Trump Didn’t Kill the TPP — Progressives Did If you read the headlines, Donald Trump’s election has killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The headlines have it wrong. Read More
  • "It's About Letting Giant Corporations Rig the Rules": Warren Skewers TPP +

    Democratic senator from Massachusetts offers fresh criticism of trade deal in new video Read More
  • WTO Authorizes Over $1 Billion in Sanctions Unless U.S. Guts Popular Country-of-Origin Meat Labels, Disproving Obama Claim That Trade Pacts Can’t Undermine Public Interest Policies +

    WTO Authorizes Over $1 Billion in Sanctions Unless U.S. Guts Popular Country-of-Origin Meat Labels, Disproving Obama Claim That Trade Pacts Can’t Undermine Public Interest Policies Today’s World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the U.S. country-of-origin meat labels (COOL) that consumers rely on to make informed Read More
  • Trans-Pacific Partnership: Exporting U.S. Meat, Dairy, and Disease +

    Trans-Pacific Partnership: Exporting U.S. Meat, Dairy, and Disease Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a trade agreement between 12 nations—ended earlier this week. The likely passage of the agreement means Read More
  • Protesting Big Pharma 'Death Sentence,' Cancer Patient Arrested Outside TPP Talks +

    Protesting Big Pharma 'Death Sentence,' Cancer Patient Arrested Outside TPP Talks 'For thousands of women to die unnecessary of breast cancer because of the TPP is a horrible, cruel, premeditated, and Read More
  • Obama trade agenda inches toward passage with Senate vote on ‘fast track’ +

    Obama trade agenda inches toward passage with Senate vote on ‘fast track’ A razor-thin Senate vote Tuesday put President Obama on the cusp of claiming victory for his ambitious international trade agenda, Read More
  • Fast Track Down +

    Fast Track Down The Fast Track trade authority package was rejected Friday because two years of effort by a vast corporate coalition, the Read More
  • Shock: Congress Plots to Pay for Reviled TPP Deal by Raiding Medicare +

    Shock: Congress Plots to Pay for Reviled TPP Deal by Raiding Medicare It just doesn't get more cynical than this. Note that we're talking about a bipartisan trade deal, thanks to 14 Read More
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

Put Trade in the Spotlight

CWA devised a simple plan for which they were united suited: drag TPP out of the shadows and into the light - one city at a time - using a medium they understand intimately: Daily Newspapers!

Two CWA members - Dave Felice in Denver, CO and Madelyn Elder in Portland, OR have started the ball rolling. We just need to keep up the momentum.

Button-ShareTPPWithNewspaper