Just like their lives before the crisis, these heroes must eat, tend to their households, and care for their families at home while tending to critically ill patients at work. Evidence of the physical and emotional toll from the stress is everywhere.
Seeing an opportunity to ease one of medical workers’ daily obligations, a group of six Metro Detroit women banded together to launch Front Line Appreciation Group (FLAG), a community-based program committed to providing meals to those fighting the coronavirus. When Rain team member Nancy Uchno learned of the organization through a close friend, she was compelled to Show Cause.
Modeled after a similar program in New Jersey, the FLAG concept is simple: collect monetary donations, use the money to purchase meals from locally-owned restaurants, and feed frontline workers, thereby serving two groups with separate needs.
The Detroit-area FLAG effort began on March 24, 2020, and within a week, they raised $100,000. To date, the organization has raised $350,000, purchasing 40,000 meals from 94 restaurants, feeding deserving healthcare heroes at 43 hospitals in the region.
The fight against COVID-19 isn’t over, so FLAG continues to accept donations and deliver meals. To learn how you can help, please visit www.flagmetrodetroit.org/donate.