HELP FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS
THE first meals were delivered to healthcare workers at St Vincent’s Hospital and Darling Downs Health on Friday as part of the Healthy Help program.
The program is a partnership between TSBE and the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce to help local cafes and food providers, as well as healthcare workers during the pandemic.
Healthy Help allows the community to donate to their favourite cafe, and in turn that cafe will donate a healthy frozen meal to Toowoomba healthcare workers who may not have time to cook for themselves.
TSBE Health general manager Jaden Frame said they had received a great response from both food providers and hospitals.
“We have spoken with the hospitals and know that a healthy meal would be especially beneficial to workers right now, as the strains of their roles continue,” Mr Frame said.
“These workers are not able to work from home. They are required at the front lines, putting themselves at risk and working increasingly long hours.
“We need the community to get behind this. We are asking for people to donate money to the cafes and caterers, in exchange for them preparing and delivering the meals directly to the health workers.”
Mr Frame said so far cafes had received more than $1000 in donations, enough
to deliver 150 meals to healthcare workers.
The Finch Cafe and iCooked owner Edwina Farquhar said the coronavirus restrictions had really been hitting home, and the whole community.
Ms Farquhar’s business iCooked is taking place in Healthy Help.
“It’s been really tricky, it’s been soul destroying for The Finch but the positive is our sales for iCooked have really improved,” she said.
“They tripled or even quadrupled this week, so there’s definitely an increase in demand for meals that are healthy frozen, and home delivered.
“It’s (the program) a huge help because our guys are finding it tough, we’ve had to cut back everyone’s hours.
“It enables us to keep our team employed.”
To see a list of cafes participating in the program visit www.tsbe.com.au, from there those who wish to donate can contact their cafe of choice.