‘Healthypreneur’ turns his restaurant into community kitchen for frontliners
VOLUNTEERISM is a priceless act that no amount of money or property can pay off. As the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was implemented due to the Covid- 19 threat, thousands of volunteers stood up to back frontliners while they are fighting to protect the masses from this pandemic. Thus, let us turn the pages of the books to look at stories of a different set of heroes.
Elmer Macalingay and staff are among the thousand brave and passionate volunteers who were unthreatened by Covid- 19. He owns the Health 1P1 Restoreant in Baguio City and Health 100 in La Trinidad, which he converted into a community kitchen to cater healthy food for frontliners since the implementation of the Luzonwide ECQ.
Through Macalingay’s leadership, the Community Kitchen has initiated a call for a donations drive for vegetables and other food supplies. From the donations, his team has been preparing and delivering free lunch to more than 300 frontliners in La Trinidad, Benguet for 51 days.
The Community Kitchen has signed off on May 15, when ECQ in Benguet has finally been lifted and classified as one of the areas to undergo General Community Quarantine (GCQ) until May 31.
One cannot wonder why Macalingay is so eager in helping frontliners during their war on to Covid-19 as he has been one of the health and nutrition advocates in the Cordillera region. This advocacy has driven him into establishing vegetarian stores and restaurants.
Health 100 Restoreant is a vegan restaurant and health products store that was established in 2PP9. It is a single proprietorship company owned by Macalingay, who associated the name of the restaurant to the numeral 1PP with longevity. Further, from the words rest, resto, restore, store and ant, a “Restoreant” was established so that one could rest, get a homey atmosphere; and one’s health could be restored with their simple and natural foods.
As the firm continues to grow, Macalingay did not think twice to ask assistance from Department of Science and Trechnology’s (DoST) — CAR’s Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program (Setup) in 2P14 in order to upgrade its equipment and increase productivity. This inspired the firm to further upgrade its production process and upgrade its equipment through 2nd phase of Setup assistance in 2P19.
Through the SETUP assistance and determination of the firm to improve its business, he has innovated additional product lines from nine (9) to 61 kinds of assorted baked products. They also employed four (4) additional workers for the Bakeshop and generate additional 4 market outlets Trinidad within Benguet. Baguio The City firm and also La improved in terms of administration, production and, production lay-out, materials management, market strategy and finance strategy through the DoST’s MPEX program conducted in 2015.