JerkQ’zine Caribbean Grille founder and CEO Vincent HoSang is Jamaican born. His family immigrated to the island from China in the early 1900s. He immigrated to the United States in 1968. Since then HoSang has made it his business to give back to both his adopted and native home. Each year for the past 10 he has fed over 300 student-athletes 3 meals a day during the Penn Relays, the U.S.’s largest collegiate track and field event. The Vincent HoSang Family Foundation has also donated more than $10,000 worth of computer equipment to Jamaican students. In May 2006, HoSang delivered a fully equipped medical bus to Jamaica on behalf of the New York-based Organization for International Development, a volunteer-based collective of doctors and dentists. The $180,000 bus will be used to bring much needed medical and dental services to the island’s urban and rural poor and includes a dental station, examination table, and restroom.
The second day of 2006 started off with an explosion that trapped 13 West Virginia coal miners more than 9,000 feet underneath the surface. Recovery crews spent almost two days trying to reach the trapped men inside International Coal Group’s Sago Mine. Located just seven miles from Sago Mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia, Sheetz Store #214 support recovery efforts by donating and delivering food, water, and coffee to rescue teams and the miners’ families. Nearly 70 submarine sandwiches were sent. Store #214 also provided propane tanks to the rescue efforts.
Research indicates that America’s teachers spend $800 to $1,200 out of personal funds to purchase supplies for their classrooms each year. A national non-profit, Adopt-A-Classroom is trying to lessen some of that financial burden by partnering local schools and local business. Two years ago, the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (cbtl) became a sponsor. In September 2006, the chain pledged to adopt 151 classrooms in California, Nevada, and Arizona for the 2006–2007 school year to become one of the program’s largest single supporters.
Each CBTL-adopted classroom received a merchandise credit worth $500 for teaching aids. Local CBTL stores, in return, received an invoice detailing how the funds were spent. Coffee house employees and students then share email, letters, and even artwork throughout the school year. Stores and classrooms are paired from a list provided by Adopt-A-Program. Units may choose their schools or be assigned one. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf estimates that the $175,000 it has donated through Adopt-A-Classroom since 2004 has impacted more than 75,000 students—and hundreds of teachers’ bank accounts.
When Kelly Hill emailed Z’ Tejas Southwestern Grill, she expected the response to be a recipe for the chain’s Z’Jalapeno tartar sauce, a favorite of her husband, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Kyle Hill. She planned to serve the sauce during a surprise birthday fish fry for Kyle. But, instead of the expected recipe, Hill got a surprise of her own—the services of Z’Tejas founder and chef, Jack Gilmore.
On September 17, 2006, Gilmore personally made Kyle a batch of the Z’Jalapeno tartar sauce and manned the fryer as guests at Hill’s birthday party dined on a meal of fried seafood and Texas sides like pinto beans and Fredericksburg peach cobbler. To cater the party, Gilmore drove 805 miles from Austin to Fort Rucker, the army installation the Hills live on two hours outside of Montgomery, Alabama. Gilmore says he made the trip as a show of support for military personnel and their families. ““I felt like [Kelly] deserved a day off...The least I could do is come here and have a fish fry,” Gilmore told the Army Flier. “What [Kyle] does for us is nothing compared to setting this up.