Facebook effort serves restaurants, community
Tech giant’s $3M-plus commitment provides meals and helps kitchens
It was Day 14 of Facebook’s ambitious meals initiative, and Back A Yard restaurant’s turn to cook.
Chef Robert Simpson and his team arrived early to make and package 500 of their Caribbean specialties: Jerk chicken or tofu curry, both with plantains, beans and rice. By 11 a.m. they were loading the containers into a massive van with help from Loaves & Fishes staff members.
The destination was Sunnyvale, where the meals would be picked up by mostly low-income families whose children attend San Miguel Elementary School.
Facebook has pledged to feed 10,000 people on the Peninsula and in the South Bay in May — from food-insecure residents to health care workers — and the social media giant is doing so by “buying out” a different restaurant every weekday of the month. The initiative is part of the Menlo Park-based company’s $3 million-plus financial commitment during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We saw how the restaurants were struggling. We wanted to figure out how to throw them a lifeline,” said Dena Grimm, manager of Facebook’s Community Outreach and Events for the Bay Area. “It seemed like a win-win. Help the restaurants and serve the community.”
To match the former with the latter, Facebook first reached out to the restaurants closest to the company’s campus to find 20 that had the ability to make 500 meals a day. Then, Grimm said, they contacted charitable groups, shelters, schools and front-line workers to ask about their needs. So far this month, more
than 8,500 meals have been prepared and delivered. Families from Beechwood School in Menlo Park and those served by Ravenswood Family Health received lunches from Sajj Mediterranean. On another day, Las Molcajetes restaurant boxed up meals for the clients of Nuestra Casa, an East Palo Alto nonprofit. Five Star Pizza was paid to feed Kaiser Redwood City and San Mateo staffers.
At health care facilities, Facebook expanded its donations to include not just doctors and nurses but also facilities and maintenance employees.
“We wanted to spread it around to anyone who was working,” Grimm said. “They’re all heroes.”
The Ecumenical Hunger Program, which is based in East Palo Alto, has long been a beneficiary of Facebook’s contributions, especially during the holiday season, according to associate director Lakesha Roberts.
This month, they received 500 meals from Mexcal Taqueria — a welcome donation, she said, because the number of families they are serving during this pandemic has increased from 1,200 monthly to 1,000 weekly.
“Our families are struggling so much,” Roberts said. “So being able to give them an extra meal and a box of groceries was great.”
According to Facebook spokeswoman Chloe Meyere, the company’s community contributions won’t end when the coronavirus crisis eases.
“Our other food stability work continues well past May, including our regular donations of thousands of bags of food that we purchase from local farmers and restaurants for local organizations who support food stability in the region,” she said.
Facebook will spend more than $4 million this year, she said, and that number could go up as more requests come in. That’s in addition to the personal funds donated to food banks and restaurants by COO Sheryl Sandberg and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The May meals initiative has also been a boon to Back A Yard. After losing 20 to 30% of their staff, Simpson and his wife, coowner Annetta, have been able to bring many employees back to work.
Beyond that, this project fulfills what the chef has always seen as his mission.
“One of the great opportunities we get as restaurateurs is to deliver food when people need it.”