Diehard Dodgers Fan Uses Facebook To Help Skid Row's Homeless
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Frank Mercado isn't your average Dodgers fan.
Better known to fans as Hiccups the Clown, Mercado has attended games dressed like a Dodgers-themed clown for years.
He came to Los Angeles when he was 3 years old and has lived here since.
Now, Mercado is a Dodgers season ticket holder and tries to make it to every home game.
When Mercado first attended a Dodgers game dressed as a clown, he was coming directly from a birthday party he was working and did not have time to go home to change.
Little by little and game by game, he started to add to his Dodgers-themed clown outfit until it became tradition.
Mercado founded the Hiccups Pizza Project, which originally began when he posted on Facebook that he would go to Skid Row to feed about 300 homeless people.
The Hiccups Pizza Project provides nourishment and supplies for homeless people in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Mercado recruits his volunteers primarily through Facebook and gathers them once a month to to hand out pizza, bottled water, cupcakes, tents and other supplies to the area's homeless.
(Credit: Facebook)
He has seen thousands of volunteers come through to help so far but has no plans to slow down his efforts to recruit even more people.
The next Hiccups Pizza Project event is at 10:45 a.m. Sunday at Sixth and Gladys, next to Gladys Street Park.
Go to facebook.com/HiccupsClown to find out more about Mercado and his mission.
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