Tony Robbins Saves Tenderloin Soup Kitchen With Surprise Donation, Personal Expertise


Motivational speaker Tony Robbins is not the kind of guy you expect to visit a dingy soup kitchen in San Francisco. That’s what he did though, saving a group of French nuns from losing their home due to inability to cover expenses.

The celebrity business coach had read about the plight of the Tenderloin soup kitchen in the San Francisco Chronicle and it apparently tugged his heart strings. The nuns of the Fraternite Notre Dame Mary of Nazareth Soup Kitchen at 54 Turk Street were facing eviction and on the verge of being kicked out.


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On Friday, Tony Robbins visited the nuns for what appeared to be a sympathy stop at first. He had given them their own business seminar in secret, and in the end, handed them a check for $25,000, according to the San Francisco Gate.

The nuns were relieved, with Sister Mary Valerie stating that due to Tony’s generosity, they wouldn’t have to be in the street. Unlike most, the nuns had never heard of Tony Robbins, who had flashed them his trademark smile and promised them there would be “no more crying no more.”

In January they had received a notice that the rent on their soup kitchen had gone up from nearly $3,500 a month to $5,500. It was advice from a pro bono lawyer that kept them from leaving immediately. The donation will keep the landlord from evicting the nuns for a year, allowing them to continue feeding the homeless after eight years.

The 55-year-old motivational speaker and business guru seems to have a soft spot for feeding the homeless, partly due to his own upbringing, and a stranger once giving his family a basket of food. Tony Robbins was once homeless and had risen from it to become one of TV’s most recognizable business and self-help icons. He has advised presidents and CEOs using his know-how and open personality.

The nuns don’t just work and prepare soup at the Tenderloin soup kitchen. They live there as well. For eight years they have earned their income by baking fruit-topped cakes and French pastries and selling them at the farmers’ markets, according to News Observer.

In January, they were facing legal action when Sister Mary Valerie flew in from their headquarters in Chicago to help. In the end, with the help of Tony Robbins and his staff, they negotiated with landlord Nick Patel to come to an agreement that they could stay another year. Tony also plans to help them find more places to sell their edible wares.

Next year, Robbins plans to give them an additional check for the same amount to find a new place to live. If they need help, he says he’ll talk to his people and move things along. “The owner of the building is a businessman, and it’s his business — I understand that. So instead of putting everyone at conflict, he needed to have a way out. It’s a model of how to do things. Everyone wins.”

Others have stepped forward alongside Robbins to help the nuns overcome their dilemma, with at least three sources of funding having been set up. One of which is a GoFundMe page, set up by Mason-McDuffie Mortgage Corp. president Marilyn Richardson, which had raised over $10,000 in two days.

Tony Robbins is more than just a motivational speaker and business guru. He is a genuinely nice guy, as the nuns at the Tenderloin soup kitchen have discovered.

[Image via Taylor Hill/Stringer @ Getty Images]

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