{"id":854,"date":"2011-10-19T11:18:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-19T18:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=854"},"modified":"2011-10-31T17:37:30","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T00:37:30","slug":"student-serves-burgers-to-help-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/10\/19\/student-serves-burgers-to-help-homeless\/","title":{"rendered":"Student serves burgers to help homeless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Sunday for the past two and a half years, Interurban student Willem Brussow has driven his truck down to Wharf Street, unpacked his barbecue, and flipped burgers for those in need.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun student Willem Brussow helps feed those in need (photo by Rose Jang\/Nexus).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He calls it Tailgate Grill, and with help from fellow students and friends, Brussow serves 80 burgers every Sunday afternoon to street people and those who struggle to afford a good meal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend Jeff and I wanted to give back and just love people more,\u201d says Brussow, a mechanical engineering student. \u201cWe drove to Streetlink, which is now closed, and set up on the back of my tailgate. We had a little camping barbecue and, I think, 12 burgers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brussow\u2019s efforts were at first met with confusion, but the locals soon warmed up to the impromptu cookout.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe homeless people there came up to us and said, \u2018What are you guys doing? You can\u2019t barbecue here,\u2019 and we said, \u2018We\u2019re handing them out for free,\u2019 and people just came,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tailgate Grill soon grew too big for Streetlink, so they moved to a patch of grass next to the infamous whale wall on Wharf Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we do 80 burgers a week,\u201d he says. \u201cRain, shine, snow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The people who come to Tailgate aren\u2019t all homeless. \u201cMaybe a quarter of the people who come here sleep outside. Other people are in homeless shelters, or don\u2019t have much money, or don\u2019t have many friends and just want community,\u201d says Brussow.<\/p>\n

The people eating burgers at Tailgate are clearly grateful, and Brussow gets a lot out of it, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many hungry people in Victoria, and this is something tangible that I can do. I get friendships out of this,\u201d he says. \u201cMost of the people here I know by name, a lot of them I know a bit of their story, and a few of them I would call friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian Welle, also a mechanical engineering student at Interurban, has been helping out since day one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started coming down here to tell these people that their lives are still worth something,\u201d he says, \u201cthat they are beautiful people, that they are lovable, and that someone cares about them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every Sunday for the past two and a half years, Interurban student Willem Brussow has driven his truck down to Wharf Street, unpacked his barbecue, and flipped burgers for those in need. He calls it Tailgate Grill, and with help from fellow students and friends, Brussow serves 80 burgers every Sunday afternoon to street people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october192011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1003,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/1003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}