#ChefsForAmerica Update: Week 3
After launching #ChefsForAmerica last month, WCK’s nationwide response has served more than 750,000 meals to vulnerable communities facing increasing food insecurity during this crisis. As our Relief Team works to expand efforts, we are focusing on feeding the incredible healthcare workers on the front lines, elderly populations who must stay inside, children unable to go to school, and families lacking healthy food access. Here are some updates from this week.
With New York as the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, our teams are working tirelessly to make sure residents in need are fed. We are serving 25,000 meals each day across sites in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Harlem, along with Elizabeth and Newark, New Jersey. Next week we will be ramping up to 40,000 meals every day. Additionally, we have set up a WCK “cafe” at the Mount Sinai field hospital that recently opened in Central Park. We’ll keep the fridge here full of healthy, delicious meals for frontline medical staff to grab and heat up whenever they’re hungry.
WCK is currently providing fresh meals to doctors, nurses, and staff at more than 125 hospitals across the country. We are working with local grassroots initiatives Frontline Foods, Off Their Plate, Feed The Frontline in Los Angeles, and East Bay FeedER, as well as sweetgreen, to support these heroes on the frontlines. In Miami, we are working with Food Rescue US- South Florida and Red Rooster Overtown to prepare meals from restaurants for hospital staff. The idea is simple: Support medical clinicians who are working in wartime-like conditions and support local restaurants who have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.
Our kitchen in WCK’s home city of Washington, DC continues to cook thousands of meals a day for various organizations including those serving the homeless and seniors. While delivering warm meals to residents at Capitol Hill Towers, José met Ms. Strickland. Ms. Strickland is 103 years old and José promised her when this is all over, he’ll be back to give her a hug. For now, he’ll keep his distance.
As WCK’s team in the greater Los Angeles area continues to feed thousands of families each day dealing with school closures, we are also working to ensure that frontline medical staff are receiving chef-prepared meals to fuel them during their long shifts. Through our partnership with LA Unified School District and American Red Cross Los Angeles Region, we will be increasing the daily meals served to students and their families to 40,000. Partnering with local restaurants, we are working to keep staff in the hospitality industry working while also providing amazing food to these frontline heroes. We will continue to expand these efforts in LA, Ventura County, and beyond.
WCK is now serving the Bay Area, partnering with local restaurants and schools to feed communities in Oakland and Marin City. In Oakland we are feeding residents at community cabins, working with some of the best restaurants in town while continuing to feed frontline medical workers. Up in Marin City, an underserved community in Marin County, Conscious Kitchen is cooking up meals for students, seniors, and families.
Announced by Governor Gavin Newsom this weekend, WCK is partnering with the State of California on Project Roomkey, a coordinated effort to bring individuals experiencing homelessness into hotels and motels to protect them from COVID-19. WCK will be providing 3 meals each day to the people in this program.
WCK has launched a relief effort in Spain as the country navigates a mandatory lockdown. Cooking in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, our local team is preparing fresh food for families in quarantine that are delivered by firefighters. Teams are also partnering with Spain’s postal service to deliver meals to hotels currently housing medical professionals taking care of COVID-19 patients. Staff are staying in hotels to protect their families from potential exposure.
WCK’s local team in Puerto Rico has set up a COVID-19 response, preparing meals for hospitals, first responders, police officers, and seniors. What’re we cooking up? Serenata con Bacalao! This cod salad made with root vegetables is a traditional dish often served on Fridays during Lent. One delivery site is Centro Médico hospital in San Juan; their smiles keep us going!
In addition to the locations listed above, WCK is operating in Boston; New Orleans; Orlando; Fairfax and Newport News, Virginia; Little Rock, Arkansas; St. John, USVI; and Columbus, Ohio. This week, Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Apple, launched America’s Food Fund to support WCK and FeedingAmerica. With this support, and the support of so many others, we will get through this, together.
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