With the donation, the Philadelphia Community Kitchen staff will prepare and deliver pizzas to those selected from their first drawing on Feb. 28.
Wharton MBA graduate Ben Berman donated his Good Pizza nonprofit that generated over $75,000 for charity to Philabundance.
Berman got the idea to drop pizzas out of his apartment window during his time at The Wharton School, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to cancel a pizza night with friends. With quarantine in place during the height of the pandemic, he decided to lower homemade pies to friends out of his second-story Center City apartment window, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
From there, the 27-year-old refined his pizza recipe and his delivery system, rigging pulleys to bring the pizza to a select number of people who sign up for lottery drawings and make charity donations, ABC6 News reported.
Philabundance will hold its first drawing through the Good Pizza website on Feb. 28. Those who are selected will have their pizzas prepared by Philadelphia Community Kitchen staff and delivered to their homes.
Berman said that his time at Penn had a huge impact on the development of Good Pizza. In his classes, Berman learned about consumer interest, demand, and operations. In May 2021, Berman graduated with a Wharton MBA and moved to New York, but he wanted Good Pizza to stay, ABC6 news reported.
"I wanted to make sure Good Pizza lived on in some way. I was always so proud to be able to support Philabundance, and now knowing that it will live on as part of the Philabundance Community Kitchen makes me feel great," Berman told ABC6 news.
While Berman got his ingredients at Whole Foods, Philabundance now collects donations from companies like Hormel, King Arthur, and Cabot to obtain ingredients—including 500 pounds of pepperoni, reported the Inquirer.
"The original thinking was, I can either give away $100 of my dollars directly to one of these organizations or … spend $100 on pizza ingredients,” Bernam told ABC6 News. “I can turn that $100 into $200, or $300, or $500,"
His initial goal was to raise a few hundred dollars for his favorite charities Philabundance and Project HOME, reported the DP.
The breakthrough came when Barstool Founder Dave Portnoy featured Good Pizza on his pizza review channel. The “pizza drops” gained massive popularity on social media, attracting notice from figures like NBA players Tobias Harris and Matisse Thybulle, along with local media.
Now, over a thousand requests come in from customers looking to be among the 20 randomly selected to pick up a box of Good Pizza every week. Berman is now starting his own new food product company named Tomorrow Farms, reported ABC News.
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