Mason Wartman, the proprietor of Rosa's Pizza in Philadelphia, practices a fairly unusual payment concept for his restaurant. He charges $1 a slice, and encourages customers to pay it forward by chipping in a buck or two for the next customer, and then leaving a post-it note for them on the wall so they can just take one to grab a slice when they're hungry.
This innovative method means that Wartman now feeds over 40 homeless people a day. The concept came about a year ago when a customer—inspired by an Italian practice called 'suspended coffee'—asked Wartman if he could pay for a homeless person outside, which he proved was paid with a post-it note on the wall. He now claims customers have bought over 8,400 slices of pizza for homeless customers, and has received so much attention he has appeared as a guest on Ellen, where she presented him with a check for $10,000 (£6570).
Wartman has nothing but good things to say about his generous customers:
"They're just really nice people, you know? Sometimes homeless people buy them for other homeless people. This is a super-easy way, a super-efficient way and a super-transparent way to help the homeless."
We couldn't agree more.
[via NPR]
