PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Wawa is giving away tens of thousands of hoagies on Thursday, part of the city’s Welcome America celebration. Hundreds of workers spent the early morning hours building 25,000 of the sandwiches.
“You cannot go anywhere else and get people to be this excited at 4:30 in the morning,” said Orrie Dukes, who works at a store in Northeast Philadelphia and was on site before dawn to get grinding on grinders.
“We have goose blood here at Wawa,” Duke said, referring to the company's anserine logo, “and this is why we do it. This is why we were able to get up that early in the morning.”
She says Wawa workers enjoy giving back to the community.
“We donate to Philabundance and I believe we're donating to the Police Athletic League — and we're also going outside to deliver to our great community right outside these doors."
Wawa is giving away 15,000 hoagies to the general public outside of the National Constitution Center at noon, and 10,000 hoagies are going to charitable partners around the city.
Workers brought 7 tons of ingredients to the National Constitution Center to assemble the hoagies. That includes more than 1,700 pounds of provolone cheese alone.
Mary-Rose Hannum, a Wawa senior director, says it takes a big effort to get everything prepared.
“Our vendor partners, all of our teams come together to bring almost 14-thousand pounds of product down here to the National Constitution Center. Everybody's here bright and early before 5 a.m., and we're ready to go."
Philabundance is getting 7,500 hoagies, said Loree Jones Brown, CEO of the anti-hunger nonprofit. “We’re sending them across the region to community centers, and they’re going to go out to families with kids so we’re really excited about that.”
Jones Brown says Hoagie Day makes a big impact, especially now that school is out.
“We know that, during the summer, kids don't have access to school meals, so we're always trying to find ways to make sure they get access to fresh, healthy food, and Wawa Hoagie Day helps us do that."