#ChefsForAmerica: A day in Newark
WCK’s #ChefsForAmerica response began in March 2020 when the pandemic hit the United States. Mobilizing local restaurants and working together with partner organizations, our response quickly grew across 400 cities to bring emergency food relief to families, schools, seniors, and frontline healthcare heroes. In cities where we are able, WCK continues to assist communities facing food and nutrition insecurity due to Covid.
In Newark, New Jersey, WCK has been supporting local restaurants, and we’ve provided more than 1,600,000 hot meals to families since our response began. And thanks to generous support from Audible, WCK will be providing nourishing meals through the end of the year. Here’s a closer look at a few of the restaurants who have made our efforts in New Jersey possible.
Queen Pizza is a local restaurant that has been operating in Newark for 40 years. When we gave them a visit, the team was preparing delicious chicken quarters with broccoli and roasted potatoes. One of the recipients of Queen Pizza’s meals is Willing Heart Community Care Center, a local organization where we provide freshly prepared dishes twice a week.
Joe, says that Queen Pizza’s partnership with WCK has helped keep “workers working, and our community fed – it’s a win-win that kept us moving through the pandemic.”
Silvano, is a cook at Robert’s—a restaurant that opened back in 2008 and has been helping WCK serve meals to the community since April of 2020. Staying true to Robert’s pizza & restaurant theme, Silvano was cooking a scrumptious lunch of penne alfredo with meatballs.
Aly helps her dad, Marty, run Robert’s (both pictured above). She is grateful to be able to provide meals for the community while also keeping their restaurant doors open & employees on payroll—Aly says they would have closed if it wasn’t for the partnership with WCK. Downtown Newark, where Robert’s is located, used to be busy with many offices and businesses. Now, with remote work, restaurants in the area have lost a huge source of revenue.
“It was scary for the cooks, chefs, and anybody in the restaurant industry. We were all looking at our hands on what to do next.”—Aly from Robert’s.
9 Thai recently joined WCK’s #ChefsForAmerica response and is located on the same block as Robert’s. They will be helping us provide hot meals for local distributions throughout the area.
After giving restaurant partners a visit, we headed to Newark Hope Village, a tiny house community, where WCK provided meals to families. Homes are made up of recycled containers and house Newark’s most vulnerable residents.
We then went to a distribution at Bridges Outreach, an organization working to end homelessness in New Jersey and New York City. Bridges Outreach provides the community food and on the day of our visit, WCK delivered hot meals from local restaurant Sigri Indian BBQ. Michael, a man who has been experiencing homelessness for 10 years, stopped by to pick up a meal and was happy to have extra food for later.
We also met Miss Bisa and Alzeeta, both artists who were excited to receive nutritious meals. Alzeeta said, “Food is very important to me. It means health! It means wealth! Health and wealth!”
WCK’s #ChefsForAmerica Covid response in Newark will wrap up at the end of the year; however, we will continue to support restaurants and communities through the next phase of our pandemic response, WCK Direct. WCK Direct is a free text-to-order program where households can order restaurant meals directly from WCK partners. The program is currently running in five cities and we will be onboarding more in the coming year.
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