March 25, 2020

A Top Restaurant Retools to Feed Front-Line Workers Fighting COVID-19

“We are all, most definitely, in this together.”

A sample of deliciousness delivered to front-line medical workers by one of the world's top-rated restaurantsCourtesy of the Herbfarm

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When the coronavirus struck Washington state hard, a restaurant once named the top destination in the world by National Geographic Traveler joined so many others in closing. Since then, the Herbfarm has retooled as a kitchen feeding doctors, nurses, and medical staff at five hospitals on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.

Repurposing the restaurant helps everyone, co-owner Carrie Van Dyck told The Stranger.

“We’re going to still need to eat. And the farmers, fishermen, foragers, ranchers—they have food that they’ve produced and their normal outlet is the farmers market and restaurants, and all of that is closed, so they have nowhere to send that,” Van Dyck said. “We wanted to help out the [vendors] who’ve been supporting us, and think of ways to continue to buy from them, and also help out these people who are doing an amazing job [in hospitals] right now.”

The bulk of the effort is funded by a GoFundMe drive to help the medical staff at these hard-hit hospitals. “One thing COVID-19 teaches us clearly,” said one appreciative ER doctor, Jonathan Scheffer: “We are all, most definitely, in this together!”

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

Get me to the judge on time. Just after New York City’s marriage bureau got shut down Friday, a couple found a judge and got hitched. Alex Brook Lynn and Adam Levy, wearing plastic gloves, were married in a one-minute ceremony outside the marriage bureau. Judge Kevin McGrath followed the pronouncement with this: “May you [elbow] bump each other.” A second couple, wearing masks, happened upon the ceremony—and McGrath married them, too. Honeymoon plans for Lynn and Levy? A walk in a park in the Bronx, Lynn said, then back to their home in downtown Manhattan to shelter in place. “I did not think my wedding would be like this,’’ the bride said. “You kind of roll with what is going on.” (New York Post)

A world singing. Defiant people self-quarantined across the globe are following Italians’ lead by taking to porches, balconies, and rooftops, lifting their voices to stand together against the pandemic. In Montreal on Sunday, residents united to sing Leonard Cohen’s “So Long, Marianne” from their homes; in Mallorca, Spain, dancing and guitar-playing police led a locked-down neighborhood with songs; in Dallas, tenor Danzel Barber began a singalong of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” from the windows of an apartment building. Readers, what did we miss? Let us know if your community is rising up as one in song. (CBC)

Helping the wallaby. Last we checked, Australia’s wildlife was fighting to survive against some of the worst bushfires in modern history. Now, marsupials that have survived face a challenge—many of the plants they feed on have been destroyed. People have stepped up to drop water, carrots, and sweet potatoes for starving wallabies. It’s helping. (New York Times)

Followup. Last week, we told you about senior citizens in their cars, terrified to buy groceries for fear of catching the coronavirus. Now, several supermarket chains have set up special hours for seniors and those with underlying health conditions. Veteran journalist John Schwartz joked that he was bummed he wasn’t carded upon arrival at a special early-morning entry to one grocery. I asked a cashier at another store on Sunday if the early crowd was nicer or ruder than the later customers. “Both,” she replied. (Mother Jones)

I’ll leave you with a bit of perspective: the light shining through ancient forests that have grown amid centuries of world crises. This image comes from Washington’s Olympic National Park, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Remember, this land is your land. See you next week!

More Mother Jones reporting on Recharge

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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