(KDKZ-TV) Homelessness is growing at alarming rates across the United States. More than a half-billion people experienced being homeless last year.
Four-year-old Austin Perine is a self-proclaimed superhero from in Birmingham, Alabama. This past February he discovered the amount of homeless people Birmingham and wanted to do something about it.
“I was watching Animal Planet and I didn’t want the mamma panda bear to leave her cub, and I got concerned and I went to see homeless people and I went to feed them,” says Austin.
With the concern of the homeless people, or customers as Austin calls them, he decided to launch a project called “Show Love”, and give them chicken sandwiches from Burger King. This is to remind the homeless and those that are not homeless to show love towards someone else.
Austin and his father, TJ Perine, are going around the country and stopping at Comfort Inn Hotels to promote the hope for ending homelessness across the country. With each of the ten stops, they are visiting local schools to teach students about the growing problem.
“I was just expecting to go downtown and show my son what homeless people look like, since he had so many questions,” he said. “I’m sure people understand that four-year-olds ask a lot of questions, so I just wanted to end the question asking, but it catapulted into a nationwide tour to help change our country’s way of thinking about homelessness.”
TJ says he didn’t realize how big this would be.
“I have to pinch myself everyday just to make sure this is all real,” he says. “It’s a remarkable feeling, and I’m super proud of Austin and I’m super excited that I’m a part of his mission,” says TJ.
Austin hopes that one day all of the homeless people will end up having homes.
“It makes me feel great when I feed the homeless,” says Austin.
Austin’s goal is to become President of the United States when he is older.
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