Philadelphia, Pa - Troy Harris and Kareem Wallace, have been cooking together for 9 years and hope to run their own food truck service soon. The dream is to to start up a vegetarian food truck in West Philadelphia named ‘Grassroots’, and they need your help, via donations!
When the University of Penn cooks first conceived of the idea of opening a food truck, they saw it as an alternative to a persistently low-paying jobs that lacked dignity and opportunity for upward mobility within the community. Troy and Kareem’s goals for ‘Grassroots’ will help to serve as a role model for future generations, showing their children and their children’s friends that opportunities in low income neighborhoods do not have to be degrading, low-wage employment, or illegal.
The truck will employ a few young adults from the West Philly area who are at risk of seeking illegal alternatives and transitioning them into legal employment. Troy explains, “I want to rehabilitate neighborhoods. I’ll talk to young people, spread awareness to show that there’s somebody out there who cares.”
Profits from the food truck will be used to spread their mission and help fund a new youth mentoring program called “A Few Good Men”. Troy says. “We’ll visit schools, and show kids that there’s somebody to look up to who came from the neighborhood and made it, not by going fast—nothing happens overnight—but by working hard. You need to have it in your heart that it’s going to work out.” Kareem adds, “I’m so eager to give back, to change lives. I want to do that more than anything. There are a lot of people who need help. If it can happen for us, it can happen for anybody. I have benefited so greatly from the empowering changes in my own workplace, and I want to spread my experience to others.”
Donations to Grassroots can be made here: GRASSROOTS: Food With a Cause
