A Restaurant Put A Fridge In The Street So Homeless People Can Collect Doggy Bags

BY MARK PYGAS

India has some 1.7 million homeless people, most of whom live in major cities. One restaurant in Kochi, India, is attempting to help the situation by putting a fridge outside their restaurant and urging customers to put their leftover food in there.

Huffington Post

People who are in need of a meal are encouraged to take from the fridge at any time, for any reason. No questions asked.

Huffington Post

Minu Pauline, who runs Pappadavada, has nicknamed the fridge “nanma maram” or “tree of goodness.”

It's open 24-hours a day, seven days a week and stays unlocked. The date is written on the food, so people know how long it's been there and she adds 75 to 80 portions of food from Pappadavada a day in the fridge.

The idea came to Pauline late one night when she saw a lady searching through one of their trashcans for food, admitting that the restaurant had been particularly wasteful that night: 

“That the woman had been sleeping and was woken up by her hunger, so she had to go in search of food instead of sleeping.”

“Money is yours but resources belong to society,” she told Huffington Post. “That’s the message I want to send out. If you’re wasting your money, it’s your money, but you’re wasting the society’s resources. Don’t waste the resource, don’t waste the food.”