Molson Coors says cheers to health-care workers
Whether a beer will be part of the repast is up to the recipient, but more than 3,000 frontline health-care workers in St. John's are receiving a meal courtesy of Molson Coors.
The meals are among the 20,000 being provided in Canada by the brewing company in honour of International Nurses Day, which came last week, and to thank health-care workers for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gift card codes for Skipthedishes (worth $25 each) are being offered to workers in hospitals in communities where Molson Coors brews, which includes St. John's, where the company is distributing a total of 3,150 codes through the Health Sciences Centre. Recipients can use the code at local restaurants available through Skipthedishes to redeem their meal of choice.
“Canadian health-care workers are selflessly caring for those in need. While we can't help these heroes on the front line, we can certainly thank them with the gesture of a meal,” Molson Coors Canada president Fred Landtmeters stated in a news release.
A company spokesman said timing of code distribution will differ by hospital/region because local businesses are being used to print the gift cards, and production times will vary. Some hospitals will have received their codes last week, while others will receive them this week.
The program doesn't stop with the Molson Coors donation. The company is inviting Canadians to show their appreciation through a Gofundme page (link below) to provide meals beyond the initial pledge of 20,000 codes.
Every $25 raised will furnish a meal for a frontline health-care worker. The Gofundme page will collect donations until May 31, after which meal codes will be distributed proportionally to the hospitals in question.
Already, Skipthedishes has raised the meal count by 2,800 with a $70,000 donation.
The Health Sciences Centre is one of two hospitals in Atlantic Canada receiving the meal codes. The other is Horizon Moncton Hospital in Moncton, N.B., where the company also has a brewery. A total of 2,750 codes are part of the original distribution through the Moncton facility.
The meal donations are one of a number of Molson Coors efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Others include providing repurposed trucks (and drivers for those vehicles) to help transport non-perishable and/ or medical supplies, and donation of 10 per cent of the company's craft breweries' revenue from curbside pickup and delivery to the Bartenders' Benevolent Fund, which supports bartenders, servers and FOH (front of house) staff.