A local business owner has gone viral for his generosity.
Social media influencer Zach Dereniowski, more widely known as MDmotivator, walked into meal prep store Macro Foods last Thursday and wanted to purchase 1,000 meals to give back to the community.
"How much for your honey garlic chicken?," Dereniowski can be heard asking in the video posted to Instagram.
After being informed they were $14.99 each, Dereniowski asked if it was possible to purchase 1,000 meals on the spot.
Co-owner Omar Abousaid says he was completely caught off guard.
"It was a big surprise," said Abousaid. "We stock a lot of meals, don't get me wrong, but not 1,000 a once. So we had to go to multiple stores with our delivery driver, grab a bunch of meals from there to pack them and bring them to the main location at Dougall."
Instead of allowing Dereniowski to purchase the meals, Abousaid insisted he donate them himself.
"We do a lot of donations within our community," said Abousaid. "We donate to the Ronald McDonald House, about $100,000 in food a year between here and London. Myself, Greg Lemay and a lot of other partners come in and we donate a large amount of meals to the people in need. We donate turkey dinners, we donate to the homeless shelters on a regular basis."
He says he understands everyone is going through tough times and he's happy to help when he can.
"We have no problem throwing it out there, if anybody is in need or knows of families that are struggling, if they can email us at info@macrofoods.ca and we would love to see how we can help them, or give back or maybe we can provide some food for them, just to kind of get them going with their families."
Abousaid says it took them about one hour to gather the meals from their four area locations.
Dereniowski then handed out the meals to those in need.
Macro Foods was founded in 2015 and has eight retail locations across Ontario.
More information can be found here: https://macrofoods.ca/pages/about.