Tossing a lifeline: Volunteers connect restaurants and hospitals for free lunches

Like many Texans who watched the novel coronavirus numbers rise, Ben Schecter wanted to act.

Unlike most of us, though, he started a nonprofit, applied for 501(c)(3) status, mobilized a team to help him at nights and on weekends, helped 21 restaurants stay afloat and delivered 2,260 free lunches to health care workers. And all since March 20.

Not a bad side hustle for the 23-year-old founder of Feed the Front Line.

Schecter, a Houston resident who works as a consultant, decided to put his professional skills to work as a volunteer. He identified two groups he could help directly: restaurant workers and front-line health care workers.

“This has been an incredible way to connect these two populations,” he says.

He rounded up a group of friends and colleagues, including 24-year-old Aidan Dewar of Dallas, who then recruited his younger sister Elena, 17. (Five team members are from Dallas, Dewar says.)

With inspiration from similar national groups that have organized in recent weeks, they divvied up duties including fundraising, social media, finding hospital and restaurant partners and navigating legal requirements. Within a week, they delivered their first lunch.

Feed the Front Line organizes the effort by purchasing the lunches from the restaurants. The restaurants prepare and deliver the lunches based on food safety and social distancing requirements provided by the hospitals.

The Dallas restaurants participating so far are José, bbbop Seoul Kitchen, Beto & Son, HG Sply Co., Rafa’s Cafe Mexicano and Sixty Vines. The hospitals are Baylor Scott & White and UT Southwestern Medical Center.

“It has been really exciting,” Dewar says.

“We’ve gotten great feedback from hospitals and restaurants. Many of the restaurants talk about how they’d been struggling.”

Brady Wood, owner of José, says the extra work from Feed the Front Line has been one of several steps he’s taken to be able to retain all his employees, which is his primary focus.

“It would be easier to shut down and potentially less costly, but it’s not in question,” he says. “We have to keep our employees working, and this is the only way we can figure out how to do it.”

Sandra Bussey, owner of bbbop Seoul Kitchen, echoed Wood’s gratitude. The orders help cover daily costs in labor and utilities.

“It helps us stretch out being able to stay open,” she says.

Bussey started the business, which now has 24 employees at three locations in Dallas, in 2008, just as the financial crisis hit.

“We struggled a little then,” she says. “I would take that over this any day.”

How to help

Feed the Front Line is accepting donations at ftfl.org.