The Extraordinary Pledge of a Bagel Shop Owner

Ruth McCambridge

June 5, 2013

June 3, 2013; CBS, WBZ-Boston

Ehab Sadeek is the owner of Bagel Land in Winchester, a suburb west of Boston in Massachusetts. After the bombings at the Boston Marathon, he made the risky promise (with his daughter’s encouragement) to donate all of his profits from the business to One Fund Boston until every survivor had been released from the hospital. Sadeek is an Egyptian Muslim who resents having his religion hijacked for what he terms a cowardly purpose. He will owe the fund approximately $5,000—Erika Brannock, a preschool teacher, left the hospital on Monday.

Sadeek’s customers were impressed. One, Patrick Keith, said, “I just think it’s awesome. I am a regular here so I had to come by and support him.”—Ruth McCambridge

About the author

Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

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