Off Their Plate: Saving Restaurants and Feeding Frontline Workers

Americans really miss restaurants, but the restaurants miss us more. More than 8 million restaurant employees lost their jobs, and four out of 10 restaurants were closed at one point. Harvard Medical student Natalie Guo had an idea to keep restaurants working while getting nutritious meals to frontline workers. We’ll hear about Off Their Plate, a non-profit that’s saving jobs and supporting health care workers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to this episode of Here's Something Good, a production
of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Each day we aspire to bring you the good news,
the silver lining, the glass half full, because there is
good happening in the world everywhere, every day, we just
need to look for and share it. Here's something Good

(00:27):
for today. Of all the things that Americans have missed
during the pandemic, eating out in restaurants has to be
at the top of many lists. Enjoying a meal we
don't have to cook and getting together with family and
friends isn't almost forgotten luxury. But if we miss restaurants,
the restaurant industry misses us more. Restaurants have laid off

(00:48):
workers and boarded up their windows as the country faced
a major health crisis. Hospitals were being overwhelmed and healthcare
workers were putting in unimaginable hours. They had little or
no time to look after their own needs, including the
need for good, nutritious meals. But out of crisis comes innovation.
A medical student in Boston figured out a way to

(01:08):
provide economic relief to restaurant workers and provide meals where
there needed most. Today, we'll talk with Natalie Guo to
learn how she connected the dots to create the job saving,
health enhancing nonprofit called Off their Plate. Now, the restaurant
industry is one of the mainstays of the American economy,
an industry that was projected to generate eight hundred and

(01:28):
eighty nine billion dollars in sales in and Significantly, restaurants
employed more minority managers than any other industry. But at
the height of the pandemic, more than eight million restaurant
employees lost their jobs, and at one point it was
estimated that about four out of ten restaurants had closed.
Of course, these issues were part of the larger crisis

(01:49):
affecting every facet of society. During the worst of the coronavirus,
first responders and health care workers were working non stop
and often cut off from their homes. At the same time,
the economic downturn was forcing families across the country to
deal with food insecurity. But one nonprofit had a solution.
Off their Plate. The nonprofit raises money which has passed

(02:12):
on to restaurants to keep their staff employed. The meals
prepared by the restaurants are used to feed food insecure
families and health care workers. Natalie a Harvard medical student,
was inspired to start off their Plate in early March
when she was pulled off her clinical surgery rotation as
the hospital prepared for a flood of COVID nineteen patients.

(02:32):
The hospital staff knew that they needed to brace for
long and difficult hours, and something clicked for Natalie when
she heard about the millions of restaurant workers who had
been laid off due to stay at home orders. She
realized there was an opportunity to help both the frontline
workers and restaurant employees. We talked to Natalie about Off
their Plate, why food was the focus of her pandemic

(02:53):
relief effort, and the difference author plate is making. Here's
what she had to say. You know, I'm not going
to fash or and say that masks and protective equipment
and things like that we're not top priority to The
reason why we went with meals is in part because
of the need to economically support restaurant works at the time,
and that need is more season ever now. Maybe something

(03:15):
that connects all of humanity. I mean food as a
source of comfort, as a sources nourishment, as a sources
basic necessity. It is something that some of the donors
has given hundreds of thousands of dollars they need every day,
just like a health store worker on the frontline meets
every day, just like anyone in the community meets every day.
And something that we understand these a helping hand and

(03:36):
so quantifying impact in terms of meals I think really
resonates with a lot of people. And in addition to that,
I would say that the hospital workers, it's it's hard
to envision what the working conditions were really like at
the time, but with cafeterias shutting down and then working,
you know, up to thirty hour shifts, it was just
clear that they weren't going to be able to take
care of themselves in this way. Many of us know

(03:58):
for the diet and nutrition are one of the first
to go along with tweets when you're under stressed, and
that effects immune system and that's something that we can't
afford for our health system. So of restaurants in the
United States are owned by a woman or have a
woman at the head chef, which when we launched, we
made it our mission to serve the underserved. In every

(04:21):
part of our mission, wherever it was possible, women owned,
a person of color owned immigrants owned restaurants are at
the top of our filters for restaurant partners that we
look for, and there are a lot of reasons for that,
but I think that you know, if we have the
ability to tap into donor dollars, we should funnel those
towards owners and their workers who don't have as much

(04:44):
access to other forms of resources. So we see it
as our mission to fill that gap where you know,
traditional avenues to capital and funding and other forms of
support may lack penetration with these under resource restaurants. That's
where we should be. We're operating in my city. We've
raised just unders five and a half million dollars and
that has gone towards supporting meals for frontline workers and

(05:07):
coospiated centers. Today we served three hundred thousand meals, but
we intend to there's many more with the donations that
we've raised UM and that's provided over one and a
half million dollars in economics relief to restaurant workers in
this country. As you can tell, putting all these pieces
into place is no small effort, but a great idea

(05:28):
brought together passionate volunteers, generous donors and restaurants across the
country to make up the force of Off their Plate,
and as the crisis has evolved, so has Off their Plate.
The Seattle branch, for instance, recently supplied food to protesters.
For every hundred dollars you donate to Off their Plate,
you send ten meals to those in need and restore

(05:49):
about three restaurants shift hours to the local community, and
Off their Plate is totally volunteer run, so a hundred
percent of the money raised goes to local communities. So
here's something good for today. When times are difficult, it's
important to remember the small local businesses, such as neighborhood restaurants,
that are such an important part of the fabric of

(06:10):
our lives. Off their Plate organizers saw a need in
their community and a need among their coworkers and connected
the dots to make something wonderful happen. It shows that
while the pandemic may have caused shortages of toilet paper
and baking flour, there is no shortage of compassion or innovation.
You can make a difference by going to Off their
Plate dot org to donate or get involved. And let's

(06:32):
not forget to support our local restaurants. We can give
back for all the times their food has comforted us.
We can order take out or delivery, and each mail
we purchase can have a huge impact on the livelihood
of the members of our own community. If you're interested
in learning more about Off their Plate, go to Off
their Plate dot org to donate or to get involved. Yeah,

(07:03):
thank you for listening, and please share Today's Something Good
with others in your life. This is Kim Azzarelli, co
author of Fast Forward and co founder of Seneca Women.
To learn more about Seneca Women, go to Seneca Women
dot com or download the Seneca Women app free in
the app store. Here's Something Good is a production of
the Seneca Women podcast network and I Heart Radio Have

(07:23):
a Great Day. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
check out the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.