TIL Little Caesars and Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch quietly paid Rosa Park's rent for more than a decade, after she was robbed in her home and forced to move to a safer, but more expensive part of Detroit

This will get lost but here goes...

When I was a kid (grade 3) Ilitch was opening a Chuck E. Cheese down the street. He took the entire neighborhood on 3 buses to see another Chuck E. Cheese across town. The fear was that an "arcade" would attract teenagers and trouble. He put those fears to rest and the neighborhood approved the opening.

On opening night, everything was free. It was a great big party. Mr. I just so happened to spend most of the night hanging out at the table my family was at. We had a great time. At the end of the night he pulled his managers over and pointed to my brother and me. "See these two kids here? They are allowed in here any time they want, without their parents, and you give them all the free pizza, sundaes, and tokens they want."

What he really did was give us a place to go after school for a few hours so our mother could go to work.

Over those years I learned how to make pizza, run a restaurant, fix the video and arcade games, do mass marketing (pass out coupons around the neighborhood), bus tables, clean bathrooms, stop drunken fights, and even close the books at the end of the night.

Mr. I would stop in every Friday night, check in on the place, and take time to talk to me and ask me how I was doing. As I got older I got to go to Red Wings games for free, dressed as Chuck E. Cheese and handed out Chuck E Bucks at the auto show, and met some good friends my age who were his god sons. Not only did Mr. I do great big things for Detroit, he did great little things too, like helping Ms. Parks, or making a little kid happy (and helping that little kid's parents). I still keep in touch with the family, and even though we haven't really seen each other in in years, they still feel like family to me, because that is how they treated my family and me so many years ago.

/r/todayilearned Thread Link - sportsbusinessdaily.com