Nonprofits Offer Thank-You Meals For Health Care Workers Fighting COVID-19
SALEM (CBS) - On this day of giving, two nonprofits are teaming up to provide meals to frontline medical workers on the North Shore. The Martin Richard Foundation and a group called Sailing Heals are not only supporting local restaurants, but they're also saying a big thank you to some real heroes.
It's a boxed meal assembly line at Salem Gnu Kitchen. "We're just so proud to be a part of this. So much of the community is coming out to help us today," said Ericka Ayube of the Kitchen.
This is Day 1 of the effort to buy meals from local restaurants and donate them to front-line medical workers. The first delivery of 350 meals goes out Wednesday night to the night shift at Salem's North Shore Medical Center.
"It's all about helping each other out," said Ayube.
The collaboration is between the Martin Richard Foundation, named after the young boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, and Sailing Heals, a Salem-based group that takes patients and caregivers out on the water for a much-needed break - something it can't do right now. Instead, the group is creating Sailing Heals Meals for medical folks.
"They are frontline heroes, absolutely no question about it. It's just incredible what they're doing, the compassion they're showing," said Dudley Welch from Sailing Heals. Through the partnership, Salem Gnu Kitchen gets some business and hospital workers get a nutritious "thank you" meal.
"I just wanted to do something to thank these men and women who are working and doing everything they can through all of this for us," said Jessica Welch, a volunteer helping out in the kitchen. The initiative will continue as long as the COVID-19 crisis does.
Initial funding for the program comes from the Martin Richard Foundation. The hope is that others will step up to keep it going.
