Wetherspoons customer uses Eat Out To Help Out scheme to help feed homeless by getting friends to donate meals through a table service app
- Dominic Dietrich used the Eat Out to Help Out scheme to feed the homeless
- Used a Manchester Wetherspoons as a base for people to send food via an app
- He then boxed up the meals and offered the pizzas, chicken and pasta dishes to homeless people on the streets
A Wetherspoons customer has used the Eat Out To Help Out scheme to help feed the homeless in Manchester.
Dominic Dietrich, a freelance sports reporter, used the Government scheme to buy discounted food, which he then distributed to people living on the streets in the area.
‘On the first day of Eat Out To Help Out I was having food with mates in a restaurant for a fiver. I had a bit of a weird feeling thinking this could be used to help someone much more than me,’ said Mr Dietrich.
‘If you thought your 2020 was hard, imagine what it’s like for these people who have nowhere to go.’
In the video, 25-year-old Mr Dietrich sits down at a table in The Waterhouse, Princess Street, and posts on Instagram asking people to send food to table 19 via the chain’s Table App so he can donate it to the homeless.
After a short pause where he sips a pint, pizza, chips and a chicken meal arrives. He carefully packs them up into tupperware boxes before creeping out of the pub.
‘I don’t think we’re going to get away with this,’ he says to the camera. ‘Do you think they’ll actually let us leave with all this?’
Once safely out of the restaurant he walks up to homeless people on the main shopping street and offers them the tasty half-price meals.
‘I was wondering if you want something?’ he stammers to one man. ‘We bought this on the Eat Out To Help Out scheme for you.’
Mr Dietrich said he hopes the viral video, filmed with friend Rob Adcock, ‘encourages other people to do the same’.
Dominic Dietrich, a freelance sports reporter, used the Government scheme to buy discounted food, which he then distributed to people living on the streets in Manchester
‘I’ve lived and worked in Manchester for just over a year,’ Mr Dietrich said in the video. ‘The one issue I keep seeing is the issue with homelessness.’
The reporter said he himself has lost out on work due to the ongoing pandemic.
‘I was sat there during the pandemic in my flat and I was being hard on myself because a bit of work has disappeared, but I’m sat in a flat with a roof over my head… I had to check myself a bit.’
Mr Dietrich said that helping the homeless is even more crucial now that many establishments are going cashless due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the clip, Mr Dietrich and friend Rob Adcock are seen going into a Wetherspoons and encouraging friends to send food via the chain’s Table App, before they package it up in boxes for the homeless
‘I suddenly realised that you can’t use change any more, you can’t use cash, that’s something they depend on,’ he said.
‘You think of that disappearing out of their income, it’s heartbreaking and devastating.
‘My mum’s always been aware of it and encouraged me to help out where I can… To actually go out and do it was incredible, it felt amazing.’
‘I’ve lived and worked in Manchester for just over a year,’ Mr Dietrich said in the video. ‘The one issue I keep seeing is the issue with homelessness’
The video has now received almost 150,000 views on Twitter, with BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Stark calling the viral video a ‘great idea’.
‘I handed out meals to six or seven people, but the problem’s so much bigger than that,’ he added.
‘The whole point of the video was to encourage other people to do the same wherever there are.
‘So many people have got in touch saying next time they’d love to help and send food. We’d hopefully do it on a bigger scale if we were to do it again.’
Wetherspoons has declined to comment.