Cambridge To Pay Restaurants To Make Meals For Homeless People

With COVID-19 causing the shuttering of restaurants around the country, the Minnesota Central Kitchen collaboration brings together furloughed chefs – and their restaurants’ ingredients – to help feed those experiencing food insecurity. Participating restaurants and organizations pooled together their resources, spaces, and ingredients to make over 2,000 meals each week. Participants include volunteers and paid individuals, keeping 120 food service workers employed.

Mutual aid groups in New Mexico are packing and delivering groceries and other staples to New Mexicans in need during the pandemic who have not been adequately served by existing social safety nets. Groups like Albuquerque Mutual Aid, McKinley Mutual Aid, and Santa Fe Mutual Aid Network accept cash donations and donated goods. Volunteers then distribute the goods to people whose immigration status, health risks, or lack of transportation block them from receiving traditional government aid. The groups are planning to coordinate their work to be more efficient so they can continue after the immediate crisis.

Filipinos struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic can access free goods at the Maginhawa community pantry. The grassroots efforts started as a “give what you can, take what you can” effort.

Organizations across the country are working to address food insecurity among Asian Americans, an issue that was exacerbated by COVID-19 related job losses. Groups such as VietAid in Boston and the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition in Philadelphia provide free groceries, hot meals, and other assistance to those in need. The local organizations are also a source of assistance for people who do not have documentation and they provide services and help navigating local bureaucracies in many languages and dialects, which can be a barrier for some within Asian American communities.

Across Mississippi and Georgia, mutual aid groups have formed and existing groups have expanded to address increased racial inequities in the health care system during the coronavirus pandemic. Several of the groups are specifically focusing on food insecurity and access to basic needs, while others are raising money for personal protective equipment.

With a crisis as ubiquitous as the COVID-19 pandemic, silver bullets simply do not exist. Fortunately, many grassroots initiatives have sprung up around the United States, like Pass the Lettuce, which encourages people to donate their stimulus checks if they are able, the Coronavirus Relief Fund, which provides relief to domestic workers forced to stay home, and the Sex Worker Relief Fund, which gives aid to sex workers who are outside of the system.

Activists in Berkeley, California, are filling in what they say is a gap in homeless services during the coronavirus outbreak. Volunteers are safely delivering food and other supplies to those without shelter.

When the Bay Area issued a shelter-in-place order as a response to containing the spread of COVID-19, businesses had to adapt. From a local distillery creating hand sanitizer at cost, to a restaurant offering groceries, to a catering business selling drive-through meals, local businesses have gotten creative to maintain revenue and pay employees.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic making access to groceries more difficult, The Walker River Paiute Tribe created a food pantry to support members of the tribe and local farmers. The food pantry has since become the largest in the state, by volume of distributed food, having distributed about 6,500 bags of food to over 355 households.

The pandemic economy has left more people without money for quality food, a need addressed in some communities by "freedges" – community-run refrigerators dispensing free food. The food gets donated by groceries, restaurants, and individuals. Volunteers maintain the fridges, which typically are placed outdoors on a sidewalk. This form of "mutual aid" has grown in popularity nationwide, despite food-safety concerns by city health officials.