KALAMAZOO, MI— As the coronavirus surges across the state of Michigan, a group of volunteers is helping to feed Kalamazoo’s frontline healthcare workers.
Feed the Fight (FTF) Kalamazoo is a volunteer initiative started back in March, when the COVID-19 pandemic began triggering shutdowns and a stay-home order in Michigan. The effort in Kalamazoo is modeled after a Washington D.C. program that seeks to support local restaurants by ordering food for local healthcare workers.
After a summertime lull, volunteers have been busier again the past month as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens.
Recently, the group has delivered meals to medical staff at Western Michigan University’s Sindecuse Health Center, to residential staff working at a WMU isolation dormitory for COVID-positive students, to Community Living Options and, finally, an Election Day delivery to all the staff at Family Health Center.
The Family Health Center (FHC) of Kalamazoo awarded FTF Kalamazoo as one of three ‘Healthcare Heroes’ at their ‘We Rise 2020’ Virtual Gala in late October.
“With very little known at the time about how the virus spread, Feed the Fight volunteers unhesitatingly threw yourselves into the fray to bring hope to those on the front lines seeking to provide healthcare for our community,” Family Health Center CEO Denise Crawford said in a statement. “The meals you brought [FHC] staff sustained them in body and soul throughout the chaotic early days of the pandemic when so much was uncertain in the world. Your work played a sustaining role in FHC’s ability to live out its mission to ensure all members of our community have access to quality, comprehensive, patient-centered health care … even in the face of a totally novel coronavirus pandemic.”
On Friday, Nov. 20, Feed the Fight Kalamazoo continued the work, delivering 35 sandwiches and salads to Pride Ambulance in Portage. The food they donated came from Demargeo White, the owner of Huey D’s Goodies in Kalamazoo. Huey D’s is one of over 80 distinct businesses that have provided food to frontline workers in the Kalamazoo area through the program.
Since March, the organization has raised over $60,000. That translates to roughly 6,000 meals delivered to frontline healthcare workers. The donations supporting the program came from more than 250 individual donors.
Feed the Fight Kalamazoo was founded by Jodi Hope Michaels, Sally Hadden and Adam Strong-Morse. It is a branch of Feed the Fight’s Washington D.C. program, created by Elena Tompkins. The organization now has branches in several other cities across the country as well.
For more data and information on COVID-19 in Michigan, visit https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/data/.
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November 21, 2020 at 01:27AM
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Feed the Fight Kalamazoo ramps up food deliveries to healthcare workers as coronavirus surges - mlive.com
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