A local 7-Eleven in Fresno is helping members of the community one hot dog at a time.
The store on Belmont and Clovis will give a hot dog to anyone who is hungry. All they have to do is ask.
A sign posted outside the store has caught many eyes and second glances.
Serge Haitayan opened shop nearly 30 years ago but the sign offering a free hot dog if you can’t buy one went up more recently.
“Reaching out to people who are in need is important,” Haitayan said.
And it’s helped a whole lot of people.
“I would say around 30 to 40 a week,” Haitayan continued.
For some who are in need, they try to repay him, even if it’s not cash.
“He takes his broom and he goes out and sweeps the parking lot,” he said. “He comes back in and takes his free hot dog and goes.”
Haitayan says when he was a 24-year-old, there was a place in Los Angeles that sold rotisserie chicken. He saw the owner give a homeless person a free chicken and he asked why.
“He said, ‘It’s food. It’s food. Shame on you.’ Finally, it dawned on me. He told me the same thing someone comes to your house and tell you, ‘I’m hungry.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘I feed them.'”