My name is Anna Azvolinsky and I live in New York City with my husband and two young kids. Like everyone else in NYC and around the world, we are staying at home, doing our part to slow and hopefully soon stop the coronavirus pandemic.  At the end of March, I embarked, as one does, on a compulsive organizing and cleaning of closets where I inadvertently found a box of 7 coveted N95 masks that a really nice security guard gave me as I waited in the lobby of our children’s pediatrician’s office—in a mask—waiting for husband and my kids who were being tested for the flu. We didn’t use them and we didn’t realize that they were N95 masks.

 

As soon as I found them, I reached out to a local parents’ group, received enthusiastic takers and donated them to the ER at Mt. Sinai West in the city. Wanting to help our healthcare workers who are on the frontlines of this pandemic, but not having more supplies to donate, I asked these doctors how those of us sitting at home could help? What I heard is that that clinicians, nurses, and other staff at emergency rooms and ICUs are in need of good meals—meals that they don't’ have time to bring with them or to order during a shift. That night, my husband Joel and his business partner Ryall created the ‘Meals 4 Heroes’, website—an offshoot of their 501©(3) registered non-profit, ‘Doing4Others’.

 

The idea is simple: We partner directly with the ER and ICU departments at local NYC hospitals . We receive monetary donations through ‘Meals for Heroes’. The funds are used to purchase individual meals for all of the healthcare workers during a shift (typically between 30 and 50 people) from local restaurants (not national chains). The donations make twice the impact as they help feed our frontline healthcare workers who are in the hospitals around the clock tending to patients and support our local restaurants to help them stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. 

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