Cafes and caterers have teamed up with food banks in the city to provide free cooked food to frontline workers and patients in home quarantine. The food is provided for both lunch and dinner.
Susan Sushma, who owns the Upper Room Cafe in Cantonment had been looking for a way to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. Volunteers from Kalanjiyam Food Bank, which has been working in Tiruchi for over three years reached out to her. The food bank provides raw materials, while Ms. Sushma utilises her kitchen and her manpower to prepare the food. In this way, 200 food packets, including 63 to frontline workers, and 28 packets to doctors is being delivered on a daily basis.
Sam Ellis, who runs Kalanjiyam Food Bank said that the initiative was born when he was down with COVID-19 last month. “I realised that we need nutritious meal, but the illness is such that there is no energy to cook,” he said. As soon as he recovered, he collected donations to bring the initiative to life.
To ensure that the food is nutritious for the patients, a nutritionist based in Chennai was consulted. “She told us that we must provide the patients with high-protein meals,” he said. Vegetarian meals, consisting of green gram (mung bean) salads, chickpeas, greenpeas are included along with portions of rice, such as pulao, ghee rice, etc.
The Food Bank also coordinated with Ramyas Hotels to provide dinner to these patients.
“Ramyas provides their kitchen, manpower and the ingredients too. For them, we just do deliveries,” Mr. Ellis said. Dinner consists of food that is light on the stomach, such as idlies, dosa, uthappam, kichadi, among others, he added. A team of 25 volunteers deliver these packed foods to the doorsteps of the residences keeping in mind COVID-19 safety protocol.
