North Carolina BBQ Restaurant Donates Sales to Mental Health Organization

After the shooting at Newtown, Conn.’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, many called for better mental health resources as a potential way to prevent future similar occurrences from happening. One restaurant owner in Durham, N.C., took that to heart, and on Jan. 2 he donated all of the restaurant’s proceeds from the day — $10,000 — to the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI).

"I feel like I did something today — something meaningful," The Original Q Shack owner Dan Ferguson said after serving up the last meal of the evening.

Ferguson had customers lining up to get into his restaurant, which took in a daily total of $9,528.72 in sales and donations, and he kicked it up to an even $10K.

NAMI Durham is an all-volunteer office, and this was the largest fundraising effort ever for the organization. It’s the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, and it advocates for access to mental health services, treatment, support, and research nationwide. 

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