2nd helping of appreciation
As COVID soars, eateries, med heroes paired again
Goodwill doesn’t get — or taste — much better than this.
The Meals4Heroes charity recently resurrected its COVID-19 relief plan as a second wave of pandemic misery washed over the city, once again pairing financially troubled local restaurants with hungry hospital workers to protect the sanity of overworked staffers and the solvency of nervous business owners.
“We were hoping that we wouldn’t have to do this again,” said Joel Weingarten, the charity’s co-executive director with wife Anna Azvolinski and Ryall Carroll. “But we always say it’s really good for all of our team’s mental health, too. Everyone who volunteers is doing something concrete and positive.”
The operation is simple and streamlined: Donations can be made through the website https://www.meals4heroes.org/, with the money going directly to local restaurants to create the meals and balance their budgets as COVID-19 continues to cripple their bottom line.
The restaurants handle the deliveries, and the delighted hospital workers enjoy the freshly made meals.
Meals4Heroes first began delivering the locally crafted meals to nearby emergency room and ICU staffers once coronavirus struck last March. Over the next 13 weeks, until the COVID caseload began to drop and outdoor dining opened, they provided nearly 38,000 meals to 18 hospitals in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
“Absolutely amazing,” said Mount Sinai Morningside nurse Sheryl Ostroff, who was working the 7 p.m.-7 a.m. shift when the first meals arrived last year. “You feel like the whole world is blowing apart, and for someone to think about you — it’s just God’s saving grace. It’s not just the meals. It’s good to have them have our backs.”
The reboot launched Dec. 28 as New York’s coronavirus cases began to soar. The plan is to keep making deliveries through March 1, with 3,000 meals already prepared and served in the first two weeks of the charity’s comeback.
The seeds for the effort were planted last March when Azvolinski discovered a box of seven N95 masks while cleaning out a closet. They were quickly donated to the ER at Mount Sinai West hospital, where she asked about other ways of helping out.
The answer was good meals, and the effort was launched that evening. Photos were snapped to memorialize each delivery to the grateful medical professionals, who often greeted the deliveries with cheers and homemade signs of thanks. “All the meals were made to be as healthy as possible,” said Weingarten. “We needed to sustain their energy through 16- and 18-hours shifts.”
The grateful recipients included Ostroff, 40, one in a family of a half-dozen hospital workers. She was thrilled to learn about the program’s reincarnation, and looks forward to a return of the Thai sliders from one local eatery.
“It’s beyond heartwarming,” she said. “I’ll never forget the hard work and effort. It’s just a little bit of hope, that somebody else cares, and it all came together in this absolutely amazing program.”