Citizen of the week: Christina Kallas-Saritsoglou

Christina Kallas-Saritsoglou rocks. I was thrilled to have the chance to tell her story for The Philadelphia Citizen. (And to shop at Philly Aids Thrift.) (And I went to Stina, the restaurant she runs with her chef husband, and it was delicious. Will definitely return!)

The lede:

Christina Kallas-Saritsoglou learned the importance of serving others from her mother, who opened her front door and her heart, to young people who needed a place to live.

“If parents found out someone was gay and kicked them out of the house, my mom would take them in,” says Kallas-Saritsoglou, 58, who grew up in Reading, PA. “She showed us what unconditional love looked like.”

Kallas-Saritsoglou has honored her mother’s memory every day of her working life. In 2005, she co-founded Philly AIDS Thrift (P.A.T.) as a nonprofit thrift store with all proceeds going to organizations involved in HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and support. To date, the organization has given away $5.6 million, via grants to dozens of organizations providing HIV/AIDS services across the Philadelphia region.

“That’s an insane amount. It’s a huge store, and there are significant expenses attached to the building, and they’ve raised that much money selling $1 t-shirts and used coffee cups,” says P.A.T. Board President Michael Byrne.

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