Tiger Food's Madden '03 to use profits to combat world hunger

While Tiger Food feeds hungry students on campus daily, it will also help serve an underprivileged population, according to manager Dave Madden '03.

He plans to donate 25 percent of his $20,000 earnings to Oxfam, an international charity funding efforts to relieve hunger and poverty around the globe.

Madden said he will distribute an additional 25 percent of his managerial profits to five charities that focus on AIDS, domestic violence, depression and the environment. "These are causes I really believe in," he said, adding that he wanted to donate to various charities.

Madden also created the Tiger Food Barbara Jordan Memorial Scholarship — included in the donation — to grant money to a minority college-bound student from Trenton High School who intends to major in the social sciences.

Jordan, who received an honorary doctorate from the University, was the first black woman in the House of Representatives from a southern state. Madden called her a pioneer who overcame tremendous obstacles.

"It's a good way to build bridges between people from very different types of backgrounds, given that I'm a white guy from the suburbs of New York," Madden said.

He said taking Peter Singer's course CHV 310: Practical Ethics influenced his decision to donate.

Singer stressed that "the notion that there's not just an obligation to be good people but also to help out people who are less fortunate than we are," he said.

Madden plans to mail checks to the charities in January and June. He said his earnings account for approximately 70 percent of Tiger Food profits. Delivery drivers earn a minimum of $9 an hour on a slow night, he said.

Tiger Food profits result from a 20-percent markup on the menu prices of their partner restaurants.

Manager of student agencies Sean Weaver said Madden's earnings, which seemed surprisingly high, are "certainly not consistent with [those of other student agency managers]."

He said profits vary among the agencies depending on vendor expenses, number of employees and the length of time they operate on campus.

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"It tends to be the rumor around campus that [managers] are only interested in making money," Weaver said.

This is not true, he said. The University established student-run agencies, he said, not only to give students a source of income, but also to educate them in running a business and developing entrepreneurial skills.