Blue Dragon Transforms Into Food Pantry For Unemployed Restaurant Workers
BOSTON (CBS) - One of Boston's best restaurants in the Fort Point neighborhood is doing its part to help unemployed restaurant workers. Blue Dragon is now open as a food pantry.
The coronarivus crisis has hit restaurant and hospitality businesses the hardest. The numbers from the state show over the past six weeks more than 93,000 people in the industry have filed for unemployment.
Celebrity chef Ming Tsai says he wants to make sure he's helping his own. "I'm not sleeping thinking about my family, these workers that are below the radar," Tsai tells WBZ-TV.
A small group of employees is now packing at least 300 meals of largely donated food every day and loading them up on a food truck for a delivery trip to East Boston.
"To be able to give families at least that one meal they don't have to worry about, it's an amazing feeling," said chef Christine Canlas.
Workers also have access to donated essentials like diapers, toothpaste, cereal and juice. "There's going to be a lot of people not going back to restaurants because they're closed, and then a group that can't go back to restaurants because they can't hire everybody back," said volunteer Sean Ross, himself a now unemployed restaurant worker.
It's an outreach that's also taking place in at least 19 other cities through the country. "My mind is racing how can I support these people and what we as a country can do," said Tsai.
