Mason Wartman was 25 and had already achieved what many people dream of.
A high salary, prestige, a position in New York investment banking. And yet, something didn’t fit. In 2013, he quit, returned to his hometown, Philadelphia, and opened Rosa’s Fresh Pizza: a place where a slice cost just one dollar.
Months later, a customer asked if they could pay in advance for a slice for the next homeless person who came in. Wartman put a Post-it note on the wall to mark the donation, and without planning it, something bigger than a business had been born. Soon the walls were covered with colorful notes, each one waiting for a stranger who could exchange it for a hot pizza, with no questions or paperwork.
A video about Rosa’s surpassed 35 million views, Ellen DeGeneres presented him with a check for 10.000 dollars live on air, and the shop went on to feed 40 homeless people a day, handing out more than 60.000 free slices and giving jobs to people who had previously slept on the street. It closed in 2019, but over six years it showed that a Post-it note can be the beginning of an entire network of dignity.
