"For the evening we came up with a special baskets burger," said Wolfgang Pütz, managing director of the "Godesburger". "It is a very, very large burger that weighs about half a kilo," says Pütz. And what’s on it? "Two 180-gram meat patties, bacon, American coleslaw, onion rings and barbecue sauce," reveals Pütz.

For those whose mouths are watering after reading this description, you can try the meat-packed burger in the next few weeks. It will be on the menu throughout the month of February. On Thursday night, a group of Baskets players were in the kitchen preparing the burgers with kitchen staff, while lucky winners of the “Meet & Eat,” Christian and Dieter Sturm were anticipating their first juicy bites. They had arrived already at 6:30 pm, “It’s exciting to meet the players in person.”

The initiative was organized by the network "bonn-rhine-sieg-fairbindet", which informs regional employers and people with disabilities about work opportunities. The network was founded in 2013 on the initiative of the Bonn Association for Community Psychiatry.

Besides the Telekom Baskets and the City of Bonn, the “Godesburger” restaurant is Germany’s first burger restaurant integrating people with disabilities. "In the restaurant, people with and without disabilities work side by side," says Wolfgang Pütz. He said it was a beacon project for illustrating successful inclusion of the disabled in a workplace.

Baskets team member T.J. DiLeo said the “Meet & Eat” was all about supporting the network, “"We advertised it because we think it's important that everyone is treated the same."

(Orig. text: Dennis Sennekamp; Translation: ck)