CLEVELAND — Cleveland's Edwins Restaurant owner Brandon Chrostowski is leading by example when it comes to giving this holiday season, cooking and serving gourmet meals to the homeless.
Chrostowski set up his mobile kitchen just a few yards from one of Cleveland's largest homeless tent encampments and, along with his team of capable cooks, distributed more than 100 hot meals, helping those in need and hoping to inspire others to give.
“We’re not going to use anything less than we’d use at a grand affair, our silver chafers, our best beef bourguignon made with burgundy wine," Chrostowski said. “We know how to cook, we love to serve, this is our community damn it, this is Cleveland, and we’re going make sure Cleveland doesn’t go unfed.”
Chrostowski pledged to fire up his portable gourmet kitchen at different locations two or three times every week during this upcoming winter and encouraged others to make holiday donations to charities that have direct contact with the homeless in Northeast Ohio.
"I would say to just give, you know what you can give and then give a little bit more," Chrostowski said. “A little bit goes a long, but choose wisely, choose your organizations wisely, or you can get out on the streets with us, or hit the streets with a different organization.”
Chris Knestrick, Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, told News 5 that donations and volunteers are needed more than ever before.
“The number of people sleeping outside continues to rise, I think we really need to as a community see it as public health crisis and a humanitarian crisis," Knestrick said. “There’s a lot of ways people can get involved to give support to places that are looking for volunteers."
Knestrick pointed to agencies like the Sub Zero Mission, Cleveland's City Mission and his agency Moore Love Project.
“We do have a volunteer program where we go out every other Friday night to different places to serve individuals who are sleeping outside; it’s called the Moore Love Project," Knestrick said. With Sub Zero Mission, they address veterans homelessness, which is something that is very real in our community. The Metanoia Project has been around for a very long time, opens up during the winter, and provides life-saving services."
Meanwhile, Edwins lead cook Justice Hart, who was unemployed and trained by Chrostowski, told News 5 there is no better feeling than helping those who have no place to call home.
“Everybody that’s out here is smiling, they’re thankful and I like helping people, it makes me feel good, so I can actually help people with the smallest thing and food can actually heal people," Hart said. “It’s great, It’s great and I’m learning from one of the masters himself.”
