Trebek to Special Jeopardy! Guest: 'I Don't Normally Do This'

Show host makes $100K donation to Los Angeles-area homeless shelter
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 3, 2020 6:11 AM CST
Trebek to Special Jeopardy! Guest: 'I Don't Normally Do This'
In this April 30, 2017, file photo, Alex Trebek speaks at the Daytime Emmy Awards in Pasadena, Calif.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

A most generous gift from the host of Jeopardy! has Vulture asking: "What is just the nicest, sweetest thing we got to read today, Alex?" Per TMZ, Alex Trebek recently toured a new homeless shelter being built by Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, a nonprofit he's donated to before, in North Hollywood, Calif., and afterward he had the group's CEO Ken Craft over to his house to talk about the numbers involved in running the new shelter. It was then, Craft says, that Trebek pulled out an envelope and said, "I hope this helps a little bit." Inside the envelope: a check for $100,000 to help pay for hot meals, transportation, medical services, or whatever else the 80-plus-bed facility needs to get up and running.

Craft says Trebek asked him and his wife to a recent taping of Jeopardy!, where he called them onto the stage during a commercial break and told the audience, "I don't normally do this, but I wanted to bring these two people on stage because they are making a difference in LA." Craft says that a wing in the shelter will now bear the name of Trebek and his wife, Jean. People notes Trebek made this charitable move in the midst of contemplating a big one of his own: his final episode of Jeopardy!, which he says will come only if he can't work anymore due to the effects of treatment for his stage 4 pancreatic cancer. "We'll play it by ear and keep chugging along until we either win or lose," he told CTV in October. (More Alex Trebek stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X