By Mark Ellis –
When Joe Locricchio, who owns five restaurants in Southern California, saw an older woman rummaging through a dumpster behind one of his restaurants, his heart was moved.
“I gave her a free pizza card to get a free large pizza,” he told God Reports. But then he quickly amended his offer, “You don’t need that (card),” he told her. “You can come every day, and I’ll feed you if you’re hungry.”
Joe fed Betty at his restaurant, Tony Pepperoni Pizzeria, for the next five years. During that time, he discovered Betty had been living in her van for 19 years.
One day Joe asked Betty if she would like to get off the street. That conversation led to Joe renting and furnishing an apartment on her behalf in Laguna Hills. “One day I said, ‘Betty, follow me.’ And we went over there, and I gave her the keys. She was shocked when we opened the door and I said, ‘This is your new home.’
Three days later Betty returned to living in her van, parked at the side of a gas station near his restaurant.
Joe knocked on the window of her van at 10:30 pm after he closed the restaurant. “What are you doing?” he asked incredulously.
“This can’t be real, Joe, I don’t believe this,” she said.
“Then give me the key Betty and I’ll give the apartment to someone else.”
“No, you’re not!” she declared, and drove back to the apartment.
This time Betty stayed. She was 72 at the time, and lived there eight and a half years.
Joe’s nonprofit, The Betty fund, (named after this first recipient of his largesse) was approved by the IRS in 2011, and has since helped four other people get off the street.
After eight years in the apartment, Betty suffered a stroke. “I got her reunited with her family in Wisconsin, and she passed away a few years ago.”
Joe came to Christ at 26 years old after reading Reggie White’s book, The Power for Living. After repenting of his sins, he asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. “Ever since, I’ve been in love with the Lord and grateful that he chose me.”
Joe believes in living out his faith in an active way. “It’s impossible to please God without faith. And faith is an action word that I wanted to put into action. I knew nothing about starting a nonprofit. I just wanted to help this one person.”
The second person Joe helped is David, who had been living in his car. “David was losing his eyesight, and he was driving, and I was getting real concerned that he would have to give up his car. He’s blind in one eye now, it’s like he sees through a straw.”
The Betty Fund also helped Theresa, who had been living outside a bank in a sleeping bag for 10 years. “She had no car, but she’s been off the street in a studio in Oceanside for about five years.” The Betty Fund helped Theresa in the same way it helped Betty and David.
“My mission statement is, live in dignity, die in dignity,” he says. “Instead of living in a car and dying in a car or somewhere on the side of the road.”
The Betty Fund focuses primarily on seniors. “They’re over 55; less than 3% of charities help the elderly in this country. I have a heart for them; I want to get them back on their feet.
“The people we help are very, very lonely, but you can’t put them together. They have to have their own place. It will not work if you put them together, they got to be able to shut that door behind them and have some privacy.”
“Unfailing love and unfailing mercy comes from God, and that’s what we’re supposed to do to others,” he says.
“Helping others is a satisfaction that I can’t explain. The takers in life are miserable. The Bible says the blessed one is the one who gives, and the happier person is always the giver.”
To learn more about Joe’s ministry, go here
