Entrepreneur Ravi Prakash has a hard time saying no when it comes to charities. While currently hard at work building a shopping mall in the Edmonton suburb of Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta, Canada, he keeps adding to the list of charities he supports.
Prakash arrived in Canada from New Delhi, India, with wife Khushubu Singh a decade ago and $3,000 in his pocket. He toiled at a hotel job until his wife gave birth to the first of their two daughters, and the couple then sought financial security by opening a Pita Pit restaurant in Edmonton. The restaurant business boomed and they now operate 13 restaurants, with four more soon opening.
Prakash said he’s motivated to help others who did not get as lucky. “We have seen the hardship,” he said.
The couple supports Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, a program known as YESS that helps people enter the workforce, as well as the Edmonton Food Bank, the Families First Society, Make-A-Wish Canada, Operation Red Nose that provides free rides to those in need in cold weather, and the Positive Ticket Campaign in which local police hand out coupons, discounts or certificates to acknowledge good behavior.
Prakash is excited about helping a program that will install drop-off boxes for used glasses in his restaurants, CoStar News' Kristian Gravenor reported. “The Lions Club collects the glasses, refurbishes them and gives them to people in need free of charge,” he said.
When not running his businesses, charities and construction project, Prakash also serves as the Alberta Chair of the Indo Canadian Chamber of Commerce.