Pay It Forward thanks front line workers
Program has dual purpose of supporting local restaurants
Souderton Mennonite Church members have heard the stories about what people on the front lines are doing as they fight the coronavirus pandemic.
There’s the emergency room doctor living for months in a hotel so there’s no chance of taking the virus home to his family. There’s the nurse sleeping in a tent in her back yard so her children won’t be exposed to it. There’s the hospice nurse that’s there at the end when no one else is. There’s the high school student delivering meals to isolated residents in a long-term care facility.
“I started thinking, wow, I’d like to do something to show appreciation or just to make things a little easier — maybe I could make them a meal and take it — and then I thought, well, you really can’t do that in this wacky time. You can’t make a meal in your kitchen and take it to someone like you maybe would in another time,” congregation member Dawn Moore said.
Later, though, she had an aha moment: “I know who can make meals. There are people who would love to be making more meals — the ones trying to keep their restaurants afloat.”
That’s how Pay It Forward Souderton/Telford was born. Moore took the idea to the church missions team, which agreed to provide the seed money.
The program is similar to other existing pay it forward programs, but with a new twist, she said.
“We usually see it maybe with a pay it forward for someone who’s in need,” Moore said. “This is more of a concept of paying it forward to show appreciation for those that are extending themselves in extreme ways during this time.”
Pay It Forward Souderton/Telford is starting with four local meal providers —
Broad Street Grind, Xinantecatl, Parma John’s Pizza and Bam Homemade Freezer Meals — that already had other pay it forward programs, she said.
People can pay it forward by adding an amount to orders they place at the businesses or making a donation. Front line workers can then call the business, check if it currently has funds available and place an order for a free meal. The workers show their employee identification when picking up the meal.
The types of workers eligible to receive the free meals include ones in nursing homes, the food industry, medical and first responders — “all those types of essential industries where people are working to keep the rest of us well-stocked and safe and well-cared for during this time,” Moore said.
There are three parts to what Pay It Forward aims to do, she said.
The first is showing appreciation and encouragement to front line workers.
“The second part is to boost the local economy and help these restaurants that we love in our community and,” she said, “show them our support and hopefully help them through some rough patches here.”
The third part takes into account that there are a lot of people who want to help in some way, but can’t leave their home because doing so would compromise their health, she said.
“This allows someone from their living room to do something that shows appreciation, supports the local economy, does something really good during this time, but they don’t have to leave their home to do it,” Moore said.
Information about Pay It Forward Souderton/Telford is available at www.payitforwardfrontline.com.
While the church provided the seed money, the goal is for the program to become a grassroots community project, Moore said.
“Our hope is that it will grow into other restaurants in our community and then even maybe spread to other communities,” she said.
Little Free Pantry
One of the primary focuses, which many organizations are assisting with, is feeding people in need, Moore said.
The Little Free Pantry, which was initiated by Bev Benner-Miller, is in Souderton Mennonite Church’s carport, Moore said.
“It’s sort of an anonymous food pantry, if you will. People can drive up and donate at any time and people can drive up, bike up, walk up, however they get there, and take what they need at any time from the pantry,” she said.
“We’re finding it to be used in incredible amounts,” she said.
“What we’re hearing is there are folks in the community who maybe haven’t been accustomed to needing that type of support and suddenly do,” Moore said. “We feel and can see that it’s meeting a pretty big need in the community.”