SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - It's only 9 a.m. at the Piconi residence in San Carlos, but 6 1/2-year-old Dominic Piconi is already fixing lunch. Every Wednesday morning, Dom carefully and meticulously assembles 10 cheese and baloney sandwiches for the homeless.
With the help of his mother Sophia, the Piconis assemble nutritious sacks that contain water, bananas, sandwiches, crackers and a scapular.
"Because we want Jesus to protect them," Dominic said.
Dom's mission of mercy began when he was five. Driving around with his mother, he saw homeless and hungry people with signs on every major street corner.
"He goes, we need to give them something healthy to eat, and so I said, 'Well, would you like to make them something healthy to eat?' and he said, 'Sure.' So that's how it all started, the brown bag lunches.
So on Wednesdays after attending noon mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Little Italy, he head into the soft underbelly of the city, unloads his lunches and wheels right into the heart of the downtown homeless.
"Dominic has a very profound empathy for people. He always has," Sophia said. "When he looks at people he really sees, he goes 'Mom, I see Jesus in everybody's face.'"
All this street corner ministering is good prep work for his chosen profession.
"He can't just be a priest. He has to be the pope," Sophia said.
When in Rome, do as the Romans. But today the pope of the East Village was just making his weekly pilgrimage, sharing his meals on wheels.