Local org delivers meals to frontline workers

It’s a simple premise: Buy food from local restaurants and deliver them to those working on the frontlines of Kalamazoo’s fight against COVID-19. It supports area businesses while giving encouragement to essential workers.

Feed the Fight Kalamazoo has been enacting this premise since the early days of the pandemic, but they’ve re-upped their efforts as coronavirus patients have flooded hospitals in recent weeks.

“Our health care workers in Kalamazoo had been working around the clock treating COVID-19 patients, testing patients, on top of their normal duties to the community,” said Western Michigan University graduate student Tre Goodhue. He is one of a group that kicked off Feed the Fight Kalamazoo in April.

The organization’s model (and name) is based on a group that started in Washington, D.C. in the first weeks of the pandemic. WMU history professor Dr. Sally Hadden, Colleagues International executive director Jodi Hope Michaels, and entrepreneur Adam Strong-Morse co-founded and form the backbone of the organization, which operates entirely on volunteers and donations.

“It’s a three birds, one stone kind of thing,” said Hadden, in an article on WMU News. “You help people who are sitting at home wondering how they can be supportive without actually going outside and compromising their health, you help the restaurants, and you help the people who are out there on the front lines with COVID-19 every single day.”

You can donate or sign up to volunteer at the organization’s website.