‘Feed the Fight Tacoma’ helps both restaurants and health care workers

The Jason Rantz Show’s favorite way to give back right now involves helping as many people as humanly possible with the most efficient use of our dollars, and Feed the Fight Tacoma is doing just that. Rob Colbert is the man behind this particular cause, and joined the show to explain what it involves.

“We’re raising funds and we’re taking those funds and going to local restaurants here in the Tacoma area, buying meals from them, and then we’re taking those meals and donating them to local health care workers that are on the front lines of this COVID-19 virus,” he said.

“We’re doing a fundraiser there on Facebook. We’ve actually started raising money just this past Saturday, and in the first four days we’ve raised about $2,100, which has been been crazy. … What we’re assuring people is every penny that we receive is going to go straight to the restaurants to buy meals.”

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The cause is intended to help restaurants that are taking a major financial hit, and show appreciation to health care workers who also need the support.

“We want to kind of fight this war on this virus on two fronts; one is to help small local restaurants because they are just being decimated by this virus, and then also kind of show our appreciation and our love for the health care workers that are out there on the front lines dealing with this thing.”

As Jason noted, sometimes people don’t realize that health care workers are often working around the clock to prepare for the potential of being overwhelmed, and sometimes they don’t even have time to go down to the cafeteria or across the street for lunch.

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“They’ve been so appreciative of our efforts. And I mean, just today we delivered 25 meals to the good nurses at St. Joseph’s Hospital here in Tacoma. … These folks were really appreciative, and we said ‘we’re the ones who are appreciative of you.'”

Where did this idea come from?

“Well, to be honest with you, Jason, we kind of stole the idea. We saw a news story about a group in Washington, D.C., that’s doing something very similar, and my wife and I were watching it just last week, and we said, ‘Somebody needs to do that,'” Colbert said. “I reached out to that group, got some information about how they got started, and then we just kind of took it from there.”

What’s been striking is that the cause helps the public see just how much these restaurants are struggling, and how much difference a little help means to them.

“Folks have heard anecdotally how folks were suffering and everything. But when they see that these restaurants have come from 20 or 25 employees down to three or four, it really hits home. And then they see the pictures on the news every night of doctors and nurses just working these crazy 24-hour shifts and barely getting a break,” he said.

“People are kind of like, if we can show them how much we appreciate them by getting them a really quality meal, even if only for 10 minutes, maybe that’ll give them a chance during that 10 minutes to kind of recharge the batteries and to really just get them through that shift.”

To support Feed the Fight Tacoma, head here.

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