Last year Alfonso Avitia and his brother passed out McDonald’s to homeless people spending Thanksgiving in Tucson’s parks.
He thought he’d up his game this year.
Last Monday, Nov. 14, he launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1,000 to feed 20 families on Thanksgiving.
Avitia, 23, posted a video to Facebook encouraging his 4,200-plus friends to donate. Every dollar donated, he would match up to $50, he promised. He says he stopped matching when the total hit $1,000.
“That’s what I always say,” he says in his video. “You bless someone else and that alone is a blessing to yourself.”
He did some research and decided $50 a family could provide a $25 turkey plus all the other good stuff.
He gave his community until Thanksgiving to raise the cash. The next morning, the goal was met.
By Monday evening, the total was about $1,400, and Avitia estimates about 30 families will now get meals. Fry’s has agreed to prepare them.
An internet salesman for Jim Click Nissan, Avitia has had a good year. He got a promotion, has his own office and was one of the Arizona Daily Star’s 2016 Readers’ Choice best auto salespeople.
“I am paying half,” Avitia says of the campaign. “It’s something I am able to do. I’ve been blessed. He blesses us to bless other people.”
Avitia says his Christian faith motivates him to love other people, and he knows what it feels like to go without.
“I’ve been in the situation before where you open your refrigerator, and you’re working so hard and don’t see anything for it,” he says. “I know how it can be when you’re hungry, and I don’t believe anyone should go through that.”
Victory Worship Center will help him identify families in need.
This has always been about rallying the community.
“The last thing I would definitely want is all the attention to come at me because of what everyone else did in participating,” he says. “That in itself shows that the love we have for one another in this community is not only the money that has been donated, but now how everyone is volunteering to help out.”
