Coffee Station fund raisers net $12G for Hurricane Harvey victims

A pair of spaghetti dinners at the Coffee Station’s Morton and Garnet Valley locations this week raised $12,000 for victims of Hurricane Harvey, said owner John Paciotti Friday.

“The support was tremendous,” said Paciotti. “It really made me feel great and proud that there are still kind-hearted people in this world, despite what you see on the news. I’m very proud of everybody, all of my volunteers, my donators and especially my fabulously wonderful customers.”

With vendors donating the materials, and friends, family and employees donating their time, Paciotti said all funds will go directly to hurricane survivors in the form of supermarket and Walmart gift cards that they can use to purchase whatever needed.

Paciotti said earlier this week that he hoped to garner $5,000 from the two-day fundraiser by selling about 700 dinners and T-shirts featuring the Houston skyline.

“We totally blew that out the water,” he said Friday.

Paciotti said he simply left envelopes with the diners and they made whatever contribution they wanted anonymously. items are most of Take-out orders also came in groups of 20 at a time, he said.

Paciotti said he was inspired by his nephew, Tinicum native John McCracken, who now lives in the Houston area and rescued about 100 people from their flooded homes with his boat last week. Paciotti said he intends to fly to Houston next week and meet with McCracken to deliver the funds, though that might be delayed by another pair of hurricanes moving

Meanwhile, both Coffee Station locations still have donation buckets at the registers and T-shirts are still available for purchase at $10 apiece, Paciotti said.

“I’ve been telling everybody these last two nights, with the generosity and the kind-hearted people, this really makes me feel good,” he said. “Everyone is just so passionate.” into the Florida panhandle.