Monrovia – COOKSHOP.biz the first online food delivery service in Liberia, launches its Feed the Frontline Campaign to raise funds to feed frontline workers fighting Covid-19 including community health workers, doctors, nurses, contact tracers, and law enforcement.
The on line launch will take place on Saturday, August 15 on social media, #FTF Challenge beginning at noon, featuring stories from the frontline, donors, and Liberian rap artist, J Slught.
Customers, donors and well-wishers alike can track the campaign’s progress and make donations through Cookshop.org, by using the Cookshop app (www.cookshop.biz/appstore) and website (www.cookshop.biz), or by dialing the short-code *747# on the Lonestar network. The campaign will also feature stories from Frontline workers. You can find them on social media at #FTFChallenge
Working with the Ministry of Health, the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, JFK Memorial Medical Center, the Liberia National Police, and Roberts International Airport, this novel initiative seeks to deliver 200 cooked meals daily to frontline workers.
Registered Nurse Bendu Yeke, works at Roberts International Airport supervising four nurses over three shifts, hardly having time to eat.
“I love my job, but finding food is a real challenge,” said Nurse Bendu. She, like other healthcare workers on the frontline of the coronavirus response, either go hungry or leave their work assignments to find food, thereby creating gaps in healthcare delivery.
Cookshop founders, Charles Dorme Cooper and Mlen-Too Wesley recognized the need of frontline workers during their partnership with the Ministry of Health and National Public Health Institute of Liberia, as a consequence, in April, Cookshop delivered over thirty five hundred meals to frontline workers.
But frontline workers are not the only ones hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. State of Emergency restrictions significantly reduced revenue for small businesses, while the near shut down of the food supply chain caused a major increases in commodity prices and reduced access to food.
Ensconced in the food service industry, Cooper and Wesley saw first-hand the food needs of the frontline and the need of local restaurants to remain in business. They developed the Feed the Frontline campaign to address these needs.
Cooper said, “Cookshop works with local restaurants and small-scale farmers to provide nutritious food to frontline workers and this in turns gives them the ability to stay in business.”
Wesley added, “We must all come together now to fortify the frontline of the COVID-19 response who are working to protect our country.”