A unique catering company changes its mission to serve tens of thousands of meals, a popular yogurt company transforms its Soho store into a food pantry, and a Bronx couple encourages others to expand on their act of kindness. Here are some Acts of Kindness, compliments of our Kristen Shaughnessy.
Reinventing and reimagining during this pandemic, that’s what’s on Yasmin’s mind, who wrote to tell us how the Migrant Kitchen has temporarily changed their business in order to help those in need during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Migrant Kitchen is a catering company that employs refugees to create meals while telling their stories, but these days it is feeding thousands of New Yorkers. Yasmin’s friend, Nasser Jabber, is one of the co-founders. He and his team are sending thousands of meals a day to health care workers and New Yorkers who might otherwise go hungry.
Nearly all the cooks are immigrants from neighborhoods hit hardest by the coronavirus.
"It's a pretty big operation for eight of us to do and then we come here to our plating area where we have used this massive room to start plating,” said Jabber.
The founders hire restaurant workers and delivery people who would otherwise be out of work.
They even have drivers pick up and drop off their workers so they don't have to worry about exposure on the city's subways and buses.
The Chobani Cafe at 152 Prince Street in Soho has reopened temporarily as a food pantry. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., employees and volunteers will be handing out single serve cups and four packs as part of its #BeAShepherd initiative.
Jasmine and her husband Mohammed live in the Bronx and they wanted to help during this time of crisis. They started buying pizza for healthcare workers at Montefiore Medical Center and Bronx Lebanon Hospital. They posted on instagram and soon others joined in. That’s when the idea took off.
"We are a borough of upstanding people who care about and support each other,” said Muhammed.
Over just a few days, they sent more than one hundred pizzas to more than 300 frontline workers, proving that just one act of kindness can lead to many others.
