Feeding first responders

Film industry chef makes meals for those on the front lines.

When cameras stopped rolling, sets were abandoned and soundstages emptied across Georgia’s film industry back in March, it wasn’t just the actors and directors who found themselves on hiatus due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

There were people like Stephanie Morales of Pine Lake, industry veterans who’d worked for decades out of the cameras’ gaze. Morales, 52, works in craft services, which is a technical and professional way of saying she cooks the food that feeds the talent and crews on set. She left her trailer in Atlanta and went home to Pine Lake to wait out what she hoped would be a pause in production. After a few days, the enormity of the situation settled in. She watched news reports of medical professionals becoming overwhelmed, police and firefighters responding to calls for service from people possibly infected with the virus. She saw grocery store workers trying to keep shelves stocked for panicked buyers.

They were helping everyone else, but who was helping them, she said she wondered. So, Morales decided to do what she does every day; feed people. In this case, the first responders.

“My talent is cooking, and that’s how I’m going to serve,” Morales said last week, as she darted back and forth outside her mammoth mobile kitchen trailer. “I want them to feel safe.”

Morales, originally from Nashville, worked with her union and Pine Lake Mayor Melanie Hammet to get her trailer moved and parked in the Pine Lake Police Department’s parking lot. Each day from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. she feeds any first responder, regardless of jurisdiction, for free. What she’s doing is on smaller scale, what some chefs, most notably Jose Andres — who has received international acclaim for his work — are doing in response to disaster. They are feeding those in need.

“There was not any red tape in setting this up,” said Hammet. “She said, ‘What do you think of this?’ and I thought it was great.

CONTRIBUTED BY CINDY M. BROWN Stephanie Morales, who works in craft services for the film industry, has pivoted during the pandemic while filming has paused, to feeding first responders. She exits a local Sam’s Club with Lt. R. Palms recently. Palms had a group of firefighters, police and others gathered outside the store to thank her for her efforts.