Local names feed health care workers
When a nursing supervisor shared stories of front-line health care workers at Scripps Green Hospital foraging for late-night food at vending machines during the exhaustive coronavirus fight, Tricia Roberts wanted to help.
The story, uncomfortably common among those representing the tip of the pandemic-fighting spear, was stirring. All that risk. All those hours. All the selfless sacrifice.
The wife of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hatched a modest plan to raise spirits.
“We were just talking about what we could do to help,” she said. “We were going to bring doughnuts one morning, but the doughnut shops were closed. So I talked to my friend (at Scripps Green) and she said, ‘Honestly, the night shift would really appreciate it because the cafeteria is closed.’
“We wanted to do more.”
In the midst of the darkest chapter in generations, seeds of human compassion continue to sprout hope. For a corner of the local baseball community, a simple meal delivered to weary medical staffers started to sound like something more significant.
Maybe they could fill hearts, along with stomachs. Maybe they could offer a pinhole of light at the end of a daunting tunnel, a few forkfuls at a time.
Roberts and his wife contacted friends Celeste and Paul Johnson, owners of Sushi on the Rock in La Jolla. The restaurant has been serving meals to the Padres clubhouse for about 15 years.
Then they picked up the phone to loop in Rockies manager Bud Black and his wife, Nan, a pediatric intensive-care nurse for much of her career. They connected with Padres Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman and his wife, Tracy. Right now, National League West rivals in name only.
Meal drop-offs on Mondays and Tuesdays began a
•
couple weeks ago.
“Just speaking for my wife and I, we try to do (charitable) things on the down-low,” said Roberts, formerly the Padres bench coach before being hired by the Dodgers in 2016. “This is an opportunity to use our platform to spur other people to seek out other local restaurants and help (health care) workers.”
Restaurant customers heard about the effort and offered to help. Celeste Johnson said she also was contacted by Padres third baseman Manny Machado, adding a donation from him and his wife, Yainee.
Toppling dominoes of good, building inspiring steam.
“We’re hoping this leads to delivering more days and maybe more hospitals,” Johnson said.
Roberts and his wife, who live in Cardiff, made an even bigger commitment: They’re all-in, pledging to continue donations “as long as we need to.” Roberts said he also will join Dodgers baseball operations boss Andrew Friedman and his wife, Robin, to create similar partnerships in Los Angeles.
“We’re going to take it north,” Roberts said.
For this need, there is no clear finish line.
“On television, you see the onslaught, how understaffed, underserved and stressed they are,” Hoffman said of taxed health care workers. “To be able to provide something and take some pressure off, it’s kind of cool.
“We don’t have the ability to stick a head out a window and clap when they
come home at night, because we don’t have anyone in our neighborhood. This felt like a natural fit.”
To Roberts, it’s a chance to chip away at a debt no one can ever truly repay.
“What’s going on worldwide, the deaths, the unemployment, businesses going under, front-line first responders working crazy hours and putting their lives in jeopardy and sacrificing time away from their families and I’m sitting with my family, my health and I have a job,” he said.
“This is the least we can do.”
The payoff comes in smiles. Those already were circulating around the Roberts house as son Cole, a baseball player at Loyola Marymount, taught the family how to play poker during the health lockdown.
The family also began watching the ubiquitous, unsettling show “Tiger King” on Netflix. The takeaway on the bizarre series about a subculture of big-cat owners has been, well, mixed.
“We’re one episode in,” said Roberts, with a laugh. “Right now, we’ve got a split camp. Two of us are willing to go forward as uncomfortable and absurd as that show is. Two of us are done with it.”
Daily nuggets of happiness seem more valuable by the day against the backdrop of uncertainty the world faces.
“It’s promising to see people reaching out to one another and are willing to help,” Roberts said. “Once we get to the other side, hopefully we’ll look back at this and be proud of everyone coming together and helping others in need.”
One bite at a time.
bryce.miller@sduniontribune.com