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Employees at an engineering company in South Jersey are using their technology skills to help connect restaurants that need business with health care workers who need food. The donations work a couple of different ways.
First, people who want to donate to support their favorite restaurant can do that, and ARH Associates will connect that donation to a hospital or health care facility that has doctors and nurses working overtime. Director of Marketing Shannon Warner said they built a website to map locations in seven counties so far. One company in Hammonton made a big donation a few days ago.
"And they said, 'We want to sponsor a whole shift and we want the food from this restaurant and go to this hospital,'" she recalled.
Warner said the company arranges the order and delivery. Most importantly, every dollar is going toward donations.
"We are taking no money out of this," she pledged.
Right now, only about 30 restaurants in seven counties are signed up. "If a restaurant wants to participate, they fill out a basic survey with information such as name, address and hours they’re open right now," Warner said.
She hopes word spreads quickly and more people share their generosity.
A Sixer joins the effort
A local vegan restaurant has partnered with a member of the Philadelphia 76ers to help feed Philadelphia hospital workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nicole Marquis with HipCityVeg said Sixers point guard Shake Milton initially reached out to her prior to the pandemic to collaborate on a milkshake but once the impact of COVID-19 hit Philadelphia, they decided to instead collaborate to help feed hospital workers. Milton launched the partnership with a donation of $5,000.
Marquis said with that money, they were able to deliver 500 lunches to hospital employees and have since raised an additional $10,000 to keep their efforts going.
"When I walked into CHOP on Wednesday, one of the nurses looked in the bag and said, 'Sweet potato fries? A milkshake?' She goes, 'I feel like crying right now and her eyes teared up,'" Marquis recalled.
While restaurants are themselves struggling right now, Marquis is hopeful that small business relief money will come soon. In the meanwhile, she said they just want to do whatever they can to help.
"We have kitchens, we have a few employees left and bringing in the donations enables us to bring in the food to make it and then to deliver it," she said.
For every $10 donated, Marquis says they're able to package and deliver one lunch. This helps them keep the few workers that they have left employed.
"We're not really breaking even, we're still losing a little money every day — I think all restaurants are — but we're really hopeful that the PPE Cares Act SBA Loan will come through next week."
Donations for hospital worker lunches can be made at the "Give Shake an Assist" website or on Venmo.
Free meals for restaurant industry workers
Free meals will also be distributed next week in Headhouse Square to unemployed restaurant and bar workers.
The Twisted Tail restaurant at 509 South 2nd Street will be cooking up a few different meals, in quantities large enough to feed two to four people. Restaurant industry employees out of work can choose from ribs, fried chicken or ricotta gnocchi.
The so-called "staff meals" will be offered this coming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to be picked up curbside. You'll need to contact the restaurant at (215) 558-2471 to reserve the meals, which are being capped at 200.
"The reasoning we are pre-ordering because there are so many people, so many meals, we want to try and space out the pick-up times so we can adhere to social distancing," said Twisted Tail owner George Reilly.
Reilly said business has been very slow at the restaurant because of the pandemic crisis, and making the meals for unemployed industry workers is a boost to his business because Cooper's Craft Bourbon is sponsoring the meals.
"The whole industry has kind of rallied around this crisis," he said. "It's really nice to have a company like Cooper's Craft to reach out and say, 'Hey, we realize that the Philly industry is in crisis and we would like to do something.'"