Man Plans Dinner Party For Over 100 Philadelphia Homeless
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A local man is hoping to raise $20,000 to throw a pop-up dinner for 150 homeless Philadelphians.
Jason Pinardo is throwing an elegant dinner for the homeless this month. He doesn't have any of the details yet, including the guests, the menu or the location. He doesn't even know if he'll have enough money to fund it yet, but he's determined to make it happen on February 20th:
"I watched a video on Facebook and someone in Atlanta had done a pop-up restaurant for a group of homeless people, and I saw it and put it on my Facebook page and all I wrote was 'I would love to do this in Philadelphia'."
So he started a GoFundMe page early in the week. By midweek, he says he was almost at the halfway point of his $20,000 fundraising goal:
"We go out and we spend a ton of money on restaurants and food and there are so many people who go hungry and I think that's why so many people are responding."
Pinardo envisions a Diner-en-Blanc style event for homeless people:
"In my heart I want to believe that if one person comes to this event and feels like somebody cares about them and they carry that feeling, maybe that will give them the courage they need to take the first step to get back on their feet."