 Hey everyone, welcome to the Living Pittsburgh Show where we are bringing you the most interesting people places and events in and around Pittsburgh And today I'm going to give it just a minute to allow you to share This with other people because today we had someone that's really special Someone that in town his name is John John. Let me bring you on to the screen here and you can see how to everyone Great John is with Pittsburgh Good Deeds. It's a foundation that he founded and tonight we're gonna have a lot of fun The story is unbelievable How he started this why he's doing it and what he's doing in the Pittsburgh region this does need to be shared You need to right now take that button at the bottom of your screen hit share send it out to a friend I promise you you will not be disappointed If you want to interact with us today as we're on and talking with John Please leave a comment on Facebook if you type it into us We will be able to see it and bring you on to the show. So if you have a question for John We can do that Okay, so I see that the audience is building great. Thank you guys for sharing it All right, John one of the first things that we like to do is what we call the Pittsburgh give back program Yeah, the Living Pittsburgh give back program. So this is something that we do for our guests and Let's see here. Let's pull it up And we're gonna give to your own nonprofit today. I think that's pretty smart, right? The Pittsburgh Good Deeds program All right, we're gonna do five pictures that these are pictures of either famous people Famous food famous locations Everything is somehow tied to Pittsburgh. Okay, okay everyone that you guess correctly We're gonna give your foundation or your your nonprofit a $20 donation. Okay, all right So here we go. How specific do the answers have to be? We're pretty forgiving. Okay But here we go Yeah, dial a friend. So if you want to shout out guys I don't know and somebody online wants to help you out. We can do that as well So I guess this is one of my questions. So I need to get this exact sandwich or as per man. He's good enough Permani Oh, okay. I was like that looks like the first straw me and Yeah Yes That's good. Okay. So we were one for one which is great. Do you know this movie? Oh See is that I Can't remember the one that was filming Pittsburgh is it um hold on It's not Batman Begins Is it the Dark Knight Rises is that a name of one? Yes? Okay, sweet, I'm I'm happy to miss that one though. I'm embarrassing the first one was a gimme I guess, right? Yeah All right. Here's the next one. You know this location. Oh No, hold on It's one of a couple places But let's go back a few screens Brenda says the steak sandwich a permani's is awesome. Yeah, the number two bestseller Number one bestseller you sound pretty educated on this. No, wait. Did you say what's the number one bestseller? Yeah, you said It's beer. Oh beer They say the number two bestseller is the steak sandwich and beers number one anyway for this I'm gonna go It's the science center. I think close a Little bit off on this one. This is So the science center is actually next door, but this is how it's for the museum. That was my other guess. Okay. All right I was close very close. All right. Let's go to the next one Do you know this restaurant? Oh It's in the strip and I can't remember the name It is the best place for in my opinion one of the best places to get a breakfast You're gonna stand in line those people are It's to Lucas Yeah, I know my brunch Our daughter gets the banana fosters every time she's there. Oh, yeah in her eyes are much bigger than her stomach I mean that that comes out and it is just so big. Yeah, I feel it. I'm a I must admit I'm a Pamela's guy though. Yes. Pamela's is great to this stack of eggs from the floor to the ceiling and yeah That's where my heart is All right, last one Do you know this actor? Why I'm blanking that's he's one of my favorites, and I'm blanking this is horrible. Oh My gosh, she's like the he's the father of Pittsburgh. He's the Why am I blanking Jeff Goldblum? Oh my god He knows this but he's the new father of Pittsburgh. He is I actually didn't know that Yeah, no, just the internet loves Jeff Goldblum and he's really proud of Pittsburgh and I don't know they call him I maybe they don't call I call him that but yeah, he's he's he's a role model. I That's awesome. Thank you. Okay, so we got four out of the five, right? So is that 80 bucks will be sent to your nonprofit amazing. Hopefully you can put that to some some good so What I'd like to do is maybe John if you could just tell us what is Pittsburgh good deeds How did it start? Where did it come from and and go from there? I guess the short answer is Pittsburgh good deeds is pretty much the uber of volunteering where it's a peer-to-peer system Someone makes a request one of our I think we're up to 2,700 people signed up now One of them will you know will a bunch of people look at the request someone will accept it and go and help them out and then how it started I guess the short version as I was I was like doing what I could to help people They guys, you know, I feel like I was pretty normal in that aspect like I would say yes if someone you know gave me a An easy thing like hey, I need I don't know like can you give me a dollar for the the bus? And I'm like, yeah, sure and then there was this one day where I was getting gas at this gas station It was a really busy day and this woman knocked on my window and she asked me She said hey, can you give me a ride to the battered women's shelter? And I said I kind of freaked out actually I was in the middle of like texting and eating a sandwich at the same time And I just didn't and I said no, sorry. I can't help you and then you know She walked away and was obviously upset and But there was like 30 seconds later. I was like, oh my gosh I can't I didn't even process what she asked me and it's like I got to help this person like I can at least You know give her a ride. Maybe I you know I got to find her and she was just absolutely gone completely disappeared And this gas station to It's right at the corner of South Braddock and Penn in Wilkinsburg and there's nowhere She could have gone like there's not a door. She could have walked in for the gas station, you know You can see miles in every direction. I'm like this lady just disappeared So I felt terrible. I felt absolutely horrible And not because I owed her anything Rightly, none of us owe anyone anything really But I just the sadness was What would my have saying yes? Created in her life to spawn a difference like what if I just gave her a ride What what would be different now for her and that that like thought of what the power of a yes Could do really just kind of haunted me. So I made a mid-year's resolution I can't remember what month it was but it wasn't December and I said for the next 12 months anytime Someone asked me for help. I'm gonna do it no matter what it is as long as it's legal as long as no one gets hurt I'm gonna do it and that kind of put me on this path of you know finding all these Really amazing and sometimes weird Good deeds and I was doing it. I was cranking them out and it was amazing And then I made a name for myself and people asked how they could you know how they could do this And then that's where it fits very good deeds And sorry, that was too long of an answer. That was that was good. Yeah. No, I think it's a good What wait hold on guys wait? Jason How are you Marty doing here? Heard about this live show I saw it on popped up on my phone. I was like, you know what? I just have to kind of check it out see what's going on Thank you for joining. I appreciate you Jason tells a little bit about who you are what how you're connected to Pittsburgh and and what you have for John So we own a family business smoke house. We do smoke meats cheeses sausage is kibossi's hams and all that Started up in 1972 in Harrisville my grandfather started as a retirement business and Was open open nine o'clock in the morning closed at 11 when across the street grab lunch Check stuck us out the window if there was cars in the parking lot He went open back up. If not, he stayed at the house for a little bit longer things picked up He got more a lot more busy had to hire somebody on and open up full time again My dad took it over in 1984 And then I took it over in about 2000 We just recently opened a second store in Aspenwall. So that's kind of our connection to Pittsburgh now Wasn't the most ideal time to open it up, but we ended up Through about a year and a half of waiting opened it up in september of 2020 right in the middle of a pandemic So that was That was awesome To say the least uh But you know, I've been talking to marty about this he's been telling me a lot about your your project what you're doing and we are in full support of that and wanted to offer a little bit of Little donation of our own so we're we're going to give you two fifty dollar gift cards to our store Do as you like And however you see fit Awesome. Wow. Thank you so much. Absolutely. I was hoping the gift would be some some meats Oh, I'm excited to check it out and yeah, definitely. That's awesome. Yeah, I think it's an opportunity And it's such a great one, you know, I know that you help out john people with so many things It's not just building you're helping people with things like babysitting getting food I pulled it up on the screen a moment ago I saw that you helped the guy fix his car and found out he needed toilet paper and you gave him toilet paper like I found that that's just an amazing story and When I was telling jason that you were my next interview, uh, he wanted to become part of this and and really support it So, um For those of you watching, please You know help jason out, uh, you know, he's he's helping john. I hope this is all a big circle of of giving Um, you know come in for a great sandwich Down in Aston wall It's support local business, especially right now. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah That's right. Jason. Thank you. Thanks for stopping in. Yeah, absolutely. I'll get the uh information off you there morty later Sounds great. Thank you so much. You're on good luck. Yeah, thank you Thanks, jason Let's go. I'm sorry for that interruption. Let's go back to your story though. Yeah What are you guys building here? Well, that's um, that's my dad and then um at the start of the pandemic or a couple months in we realized, you know all these kids are at home And you know, you know just learning on it was actually my wife One of her one of her um clients, you know, one of the kids she sees that you know for speech therapy Was telling her how excited he was to get a desk to learn at at home And so I called him my dad my dad we can do this we got tools like let's let's crank some out So we just you know got a couple sheets of plywood made a simple design And then all in all we made over 60 desks over the last year and just gave them away for free or you know, people That was really fun that was I don't know It's not too often that you get a good deed that can that can help kids out and I always that's where my heart is I love to help kids if I can so that was a really special one especially to work with my dad. Oh my gosh That's great So where is this scrap wood? How do you do you have a partnership with somebody that gets you the material? I mean, so michelle and I are in real estate right and Heather the all three of us and Right now if you go out and build I build a new home The cost of those homes are 30 percent more because of the cost mostly because of cost of wood Yeah, so where are you getting your material? Well, so luckily this was really early on before wood spiked to an insane amount But we we were just getting a home depot and I have a thing set up with them So I don't I don't pay any taxes with the nonprofit and Yeah, I don't have any special it would have been nice to get a sponsor But we made you know I had non-profit money enough people who were able to afford it pitched in for materials and Actually a lot of generous people just sent me money like some people would send me 500 bucks and say hey This is for people who can't afford it and so yeah, I mean we it all it all balanced out We it's not like we took a huge loss on that we everyone was very generous That's great. And this is the finished product here. That's one of the finished s Yep, we stained it up top and painted it and yeah That's great. That's great Deion What are you doing here? I just I don't know something happened. I just popped up on the screen Here you are Thank you for joining I appreciate it. Um, please meet john Hello, how's it going? It's going really well Very nice to meet you. I love watching what you're doing and i'm super excited for the future and what you're doing to help people in Pittsburgh I love this city so much that we actually bought a franchise the colors were black and gold called realty one group gold standard So, you know watching you looking at your logo and seeing all the things you're doing We're so busy building our business that we don't always have time to help people like we want to so We want to we want to help a little bit for you. We want to give you some help Okay, yeah I love it Yeah, marty Go ahead deion. What are we doing? So we'd like to share a check with you for a thousand dollars Thousand dollars Thousand bucks and we hope it helps and you can do a bunch of little things and Some big things if you want and you know, we definitely want to help and be a part of what you're doing So, you know, I'm super excited when when marty called on the slide didn't tell michelle. I thought that was kind of fun So Yeah My partner might couldn't be here tonight because he's he has poor kids and they are just going a little crazy at his house So he's like, I don't think I could jump on because I don't know if this burger ready for the handling So I just wanted to say thank you so much for what you're doing You're an incredible human being and the world could use so many more people like you Thank you. I don't even know what to say. That's that's an incredible amount of money I have like as you're talking I I have 10 people that I know that could use that right now So I'll put it to good use. I appreciate it so much. I'm sure you will thank you very much Man marty, you didn't tell me this was just going to be shock full of surprises He didn't tell us either. This has been great. I knew it I felt like a movie star with the breaking news So good Oh Thank you. So, you know, michelle and I have recently partnered with deon and her company in our real estate ventures We're so pleased to be working with you and we're so excited and You know, just so excited that you Joined us in this tonight You know and supported john. So thank you. You're very welcome It's it's important, you know for us to support and help others because we really my heart is in the right place But our time is so limited, you know trying to build this company and we just we're taking on mortgage and title And insurance like we have so many things going on and at the end of the day Our time is running out So with people like you john and marty and michelle and heather all of the things that you guys are doing It makes it easier for us to be able to help as many people as possible At the end of the day our goal is to help as many real estate agents as we can But by doing something like this we can help more than just real estate agents So my goal every day is to affect someone's life in a positive way This allows me to do that with quite a few people even people that I don't know, which is good I love that deon Well john, I I hope That money can go to good use Within your nonprofits Yeah, absolutely, and I don't I don't take a paycheck or anything. So pretty much every penny I mean outside of like transfer fees or anything any that people send me goes to helping others So it'll it'll find a it will find a good home. I know there's lots of people Actually Agents that could use a handyman for services too. So we could shout out that for years. Yeah. Oh man I'm booked up for a while, but I'm happy to take on new clients and You know Yeah Actually, let's throw up the nonprofits website This might be a good time for anyone else out there that wants to get involved And help out john, it doesn't have to be during this live show But if you can go to pgh good deeds dot org And I see that I have a typo in there dot. It's dot org, right? It's dot org. Yeah All right, let me let me fix that real quick very efficient. You got them all down dot com Dot info dot go All of them go to john. No, but it's all me You should buy the other ones too just to be safe But I probably should Yeah, that's that's a good advice. I don't have a good business sense. I just try you know, I have a lot of advice I just don't want to listen. That's all Yeah If you want to if you want to email me and give me any advice I just I just know how to help people like I don't know I had a friend to create the website for free and pretty much everything has just been But people like you who want to help in some way and do stuff like I had someone design my logo and you know They helped out in that way and it's it's a conglomeration. It's not just me. So it's I really appreciate Shirts and sell the shirts so that we can all wear it around Pittsburgh. I think I have merch Yeah To commonwealth press they they hooked it up and give me anything at cost and you know So now I have some really nice merchandise because of them. It's a it's a it takes a village, right? It takes a village really good stuff Great, we will reconnect on the merchant and maybe do some promotional work for you there as well Right on it would be great to get the name out there I'm dion. Thank you so much for dropping in the gift is seriously just amazing And we're so happy happy to be working with you and we're happy that we could do it. See you guys. Have a good day Yeah Wow, I can't take any more Liz Marty. That was it I Let's go back to uh, maybe the desks or something. Um, yeah I don't want to don't let me quarterback your show if you had more. I'll obviously take more Yeah, um Why don't you tell us about just all the different ways people can interact with you? Um Because again when I was a little bit surprised with Pittsburgh. Good deeds. I saw the truck the hammers the The rent I'm kind of thinking. Okay. It's all mechanical, right? But what else do you guys offer? So I do I'm pretty much a one-man show with all the contracting work Anything that's that's you know house repairs or whatever. It's pretty much me Um, and we got a bunch of other people who will do a ton of other stuff, you know Um, we we have a lot of people who are willing to babysit or do A lot of good people who can help you with this career coaching. I think that's a huge one We get a lot of requests for and um, We have a lot of tech people actually A lot of tech people most people work from home and they're good with computers. So If you you know people need any computer help we got people Um, I do I have a couple people who are hairstylists that that have given people haircuts and Um, yeah, so it's pretty it's that's that's kind of I need to update that less There's a lot more now, but you know pretty much everything We have someone who can do it So it's it's really cool to have a bunch of other people step up and add their own skills into the mix And it How does that work they go to your website or oh sorry? Yeah Well, so if you go to the website it takes you it there's a it shows you what you do we do But then there's a link to our our reddit page, which is just our forum And basically you have to sign up for a free account and then you can post and say hey, you know, I'm in West Mifflin and I need this and then um everyone will discuss, you know and try to coordinate to get you help and then Hopefully, you know, you can find someone and then they'll you know coordinate with you to go go out and do it So, yeah, the the website has all the info on on how to do that and how to poster requests to get some help Hey, john, I was looking over that list. I didn't see organ donation on that list. Oh gosh That was yeah a little bit about that Oh, man. Yeah. Well, so as of right now, I think that might have been a one-time thing, you know We'll see but um, I was this was well after well, well after I mean this was years after my um my Resolution to say yes all the time, right? So I didn't have to say yes anymore I could I can kind of pick and choose but my heart really felt led to um answer this instagram post Where a daughter was trying to find a kidney for her father and I told myself like yeah This is a little nuts But I'll look into it and then I talked to him and I was like, okay This is less scary and then I said well, I'll get tested and if it's an exact match I'll do it and then it was an exact match and I'm like, okay Well, I got to do it and then I ended up giving um this guy's name is Mike my kidney That's incredible That's an amazing gift of life. I mean you're you're building homes fixing cars giving out toilet paper and Every once in a while a kidney Every once in a while. Yeah That's just amazing Um, I actually had a question about let me go back in my pictures here These cars you look like uh, you're either a giant or that's a very small truck Ah both. Yeah I have I have this affinity for Minimalism as much as I can it's it's not like a I don't know. It's more of a hobby than anything else. So everyone always makes fun of my um my smartphone I have Oh, the camera's gone. I have the world's smallest smartphone. It's the size of a credit card So like if you look at it in terms of my hands Absolutely micro so I just I don't know it's just it's goofy to me It's like a fun conversational thing, but I fell in love with these um These japanese these micro trucks and they're legal to import and they get great gas mileage and I just I I love it Yeah, I got my roof rack on there. I can put my ladders. I can haul, you know Thousand something pounds and I just I kind of love to flip the whole perception of what a contractor Is or even a what a man is I guess, you know Like I love just rolling up to home depot on this and then everyone's making fun of me and they're like Wow, that's a baby truck and like, you know They're saying all these mean things but then they seem to like load up a whole truck Apply what to make these desks and then everyone's like, where do you get that? Like I want one of those and I don't know. I just like to I like to make people question what What it is to be normal what it is to do these things and I don't know that's that's that's my love for for obscure tiny things I love it. How fast does it go? It goes up to 70. I I went for it. I mean if the acceleration is minimal, but I can make it on the highways Yeah Marty, I think we need one of those. Yes. I think we need one too They're for aging How do you get in the back is it is that just like a dumpster or are there don't I can't see what's behind No, it behind me there are doors. So yeah, I have like a little lock thing and I can pull it up And so yeah, I keep all my tools in there. I mean I have a hole I could build a house out of that thing. I actually did build a house out of that thing I built a little a tiny home. So, you know, it's you can do a lot with a little Yeah, well, Michelle has been bothering me. She really wants to get a unique Trucker band and we actually I don't know if it's the same that you said this was a Japanese vehicle, right? Yeah, that's what we saw as well. I don't remember the name of it now is more like a It was like a Subaru. I thought Well, no, it was like a carousel. Well, I think Subaru does have a Like a line of it, but it's almost like a caravan and had like a glass ceiling Oh, yeah, I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, those are cool Yeah, this one is actually more practical. But I think for the type of work that we do To contain it like bright pink or yellow. Oh, yeah, that'd be sweet Maybe I should get a heather in this shell's reaction to this one. So This is this is our friend Dave. Dave owns a place called USA flooring in Kitsune. Yeah He is He's he's probably making them laugh because Dave is actually one of the funniest guys ever And I wish he could be on the show with us. Unfortunately. He can't He uh, it's on the water board and he says he sits on the water board to make sure that nobody pees in the water of his town He wants to make sure that it's perfectly clean So, um, that's what he's doing tonight So so but when he he saw that we were having you on the show and he started looking into You know, what it is that you do and how you help people What he wanted to do was offer you to come out to a shop Pick out a carpet for any size room that you're working on You know that for one of the the folks that you're helping and grab some carpet and take it with you In that tiny truck now that I know that it's whole stuff. Oh, that's really awesome He's a good guy That's amazing. Yeah, that is amazing Wow, I actually I do Um, I don't know. I'll talk to him, but this is we my wife and I just bought a home and we uh We're I told you we're gonna we're gonna foster soon and um, you know, so we're gonna use that and then I mean in the past We've always taken on some homeless people who needed it and like put them in our spare bedroom So I wonder I'll talk to them But we do have one room that could really use carpet But if um if that doesn't work I can always find someone who is not me who needs carpet as well But that's that was your generous of them Yeah, thank you. Dave. It's great. Thank you Dave So we appreciate that Okay, so um, john, you know I think we can maybe wrap this show up a little bit But is there anything you want to leave the the people watching and and that'll come later and watch this Is there anything you want to leave with them? um, man, I so I mean, I appreciate all the help and support obviously I can't do this stuff without without this kind of help to monetary and just encouragement So I really appreciate that. Um, but also, you know, we're building this network up of people who who want to do good deeds And you know, I want to make Pittsburgh better. So it doesn't That's what I really like about it. There's no, you know, you have to be there at this time This it's it's all you pick and choose and you help when you can so if you want to help out I think you put the website up earlier Um, you can go and sign up and get hooked up with our forum and You know look around and see if there's a volunteer opportunity that you can do as well And we would love to have you Great. Um, well john, I just want to thank you. It's uh, we always say And the reason we have this show is to really bring people like you to the forefront People that are either starting interesting businesses or taking People on interesting sightseeing trips at Pittsburgh or Um, just have some sort of interesting story. It's the people that make the community Um And people like you are very different from the average person For those though that are thinking about moving to Pittsburgh I think what is a little bit unique about the town we live in is that we are more like a midwest town We are closer to these coast But most people are very friendly here and are looking to help So I just want to thank you Yeah, thank you john very much Your your inspiration to all of us Thank you guys so much for having me. I had a great time Thank you. Okay, and if you come on again, I'll make sure he doesn't have the breaking news button. Oh my gosh One suggestion I I I just had a heart attack and I was like the world It was full of surprises. I appreciate it Yeah Yeah, I mean in I do want to thank let's go back through it, you know, really one gold standard neon a thousand dollar gift That's amazing. Wow We've got um The smoke meat house $400. Yeah, yep, willies jason over at willies for a hundred bucks And then we've got the $80 donation going because you guessed good pictures Thank you for everything Carpet yeah, that's probably like $1,500 $2,000 worth of stuff I just Come on and talk and I thought I might get like one or two of your questions, right? That's what I was expecting So, you know, realistically, this is unbelievable And we hope this isn't the last time so One of the things that that we do is we we do buy homes. We we fix them up. We typically keep them as rentals Um, michelle is a realtor. She buys and sells homes So we're hoping this isn't the the last time we actually run into you that we actually In the future So john, thank you very much for joining Um, let me just pull up for everyone next week. We're going to meet a very dynamic lady Uh, who helped start luke and mike's front porch, which is an aspen wall. We're gonna hear her story I think they're on restaurant number eight or nine and they have some exciting breaking news I won't use the breaking news buttons, but they do have some breaking news Coming out next week and and we're hopefully going to be able to share that on the show I'm super excited about it If you've watched living pittsburgh in the past you will you'll recognize the mural in the background If you've ever been to aspen wall, it is the center of town. They've got great outdoor space And we're just going to hear how they built the business why they built it You know what it means to the community and how they've been helping support Aspen wall through the the pandemic and how aspen has been supporting them through the pandemic Which I think is great as well. Yeah, so thank you everyone for sticking with us watching it I hope it was worth it and I hope when you shared it was worth the others joining Thank you so much. See you next week every thursday at 8 15 p.m. Eastern living pittsburgh