Some restaurants in uptown Saint John are finding good in a tough situation by helping families in need in the city.
Several uptown restaurants have donated food that otherwise would have gone to waste to local charities.
The initiative first started at Cask & Kettle, when co-owner Shawn Verner and his team were getting ready to close ahead of the provincial government’s orders to contain the spread of COVID-19.
“We had decided last Monday that we were just going to shut down on our own. Just as we were cleaning up and cleaning out fridges, our general manager Julie Thomson suggested that she could take some stuff to Romero House,” says Verner. “She asked us if that was okay and we said of course.”
Then at a staff meeting later that week, employee Haley Stewart suggested they also donate some food to P.U.L.S.E., a group that supports residents in need in Saint John’s south end. They put together a package of perishable foods like produce, cheese and meats.
“She and my chef Rob Collins got everything together that wouldn’t last and dropped it off to them,” says Verner.
When uptown Saint John executive director Nancy Tissington heard about the donation, she sent the word out to other uptown restaurants, who she figured would be looking to donate their perishable foods, too. Uptown Saint John would offer its truck to pick up the donations for free.
“We can be part of the puzzle to help facilitate getting the food to where it needs to be,” says Tissington. “We thought this was a good service and remain supportive of our businesses, so let’s do this. We got a resource in the truck, so let’s go for it.”
Other restaurants that have donated so far include Churchill’s Steakhouse and Grannan’s Seafood. Food donations have been made to the Coverdale Centre for Women, and P.U.L.S.E.
P.U.L.S.E is using the donations for grocery packages they deliver to families in need in the neighborhood and throughout the city with partnering organizations. With many people in the city now laid off, donations from the community right now are important to P.U.L.S.E’s efforts.
“It’s helping people with food security,” says Samantha Wentzell, a community developer with Horizon Health that works with P.U.L.S.E.
Many of those people were already going through times, she says, but many others would have recently lost jobs because of the coronavirus crisis and now need help, too.
“We’re able to help those who we’d normally be helping in the community that are vulnerable, but we’ve seen a real increase in the population that’s vulnerable in the city,” says Wentzell.
Verner says he’s happy to help and glad to see other restaurants donating their extra food too.
“Any type of non-profit organization, they’re going to take a big hit too. People are not going out, people are getting laid off and they may not have as much to give,” he says.”So restaurants donating any food that they can’t keep will help them out in the long run and keep operations going.”
P.U.L.S.E’s operations manager Mary LeSage says she hopes people will show local restaurants the same generosity when they’re allowed to reopen.
“When all of this is said and done, it would be great for everybody to show their support for these restaurants and what they’ve done for us and go and partake in a meal at their local establishment,” she says. “Because they’ve been wonderful to us, so I’d like to see that paid back to them.”
A version of this story was published in Huddle, an online business news publication based in Saint John. Huddle is an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
