DALLAS (1080 KRLD) - Seven local restaurants have started working together to deliver a thousand meals a week to doctors and nurses working with COVID-19 patients.
The 7740Dallas project is buying meals from local restaurants that have lost business and delivering them to hospitals. The group buys meals from seven local restaurants and delivers them to seven hospitals.
"There is certainly an economic impact," says organizer Jacob Tindall. "A lot of the restaurants are able to keep workers they would have otherwise furloughed to help put the meals together and help with deliveries."
7740Dallas is providing about a thousand meals a week. Tindall says the group delivers 50 meals to seven hospitals on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The hospitals with COVID-19 wards are Baylor Scott & White Dallas, Baylor Scott & White Plano, Children's Medical Center Dallas, Methodist Hospital, Parkland Hospital, Texas Health Dallas and UT Southwestern.
The seven restaurants participating are Babe’s Chicken Dinner House, Chop House Burger, Commissary Dallas, HG Sply, Lockwood Distilling Co., Red Stix Asian Street Food and Wild Salsa.
Tindall says the idea came to him when a friend was diagnosed with COVID-19. Tindall says his friend spent about a week at UT Southwestern, including several days in ICU. When the friend recovered, Tindall says he was trying to figure out a way to thank the staff at UT Southwestern while also helping out another friend, Paul Vinyard, who had started Babe's Chicken Dinner House in 1981.
"I wanted to do a 'thank you' to UT Southwestern for what they did for him. I wanted to say, 'Hey, Paul, I want to help you out. Let's cater some meals over to those guys,'" Tindall says. "As I started thinking about it, that's just a one-off. Maybe this could be something bigger, something better."
Tindall has 40 sponsors and funding to continue serving meals through the middle of May. He says he would like to expand the program to include additional hospitals, paramedics or other first responders. Tindall would also like to include additional restaurants and continue serving meals through the end of May.
More information can be found at 7740Dallas.com. Tindall says 100 percent of donations go directly to buy meals.
"The emotional part of this, the psychological part of this, I would love to keep going. There are so many other restaurants in need. There are so many other front-line workers I would love to thank," Tindall says.