Feed the Frontlines Update: May 2020

It is hard to believe, but it has been nine weeks since we launched Feed the Frontlines Boulder on March 30. This innovative community program led to hundreds of health care workers receiving nourishing meals while concurrently directing badly needed business to local restaurants.

The original mission of the program was to deliver meals to the front line team at BCH, yet it quickly expanded to a number of other partner organizations thanks to the outpouring of generosity from the community.

A few of our favorite headlines to date:

• Raised over $687,000 from over 1,400 individual donors and businesses
• Delivered over 14,000 nutritious meals through May 16
• Expanded to multiple front line agencies: Boulder Community Health, Clinica Family Health, CU Medical Services, Boulder Police Department, Boulder Fire-Rescue and City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks.
• Grew from 7 to 26 restaurants delivering meals to the front lines: Ali Baba Grill, Blackbelly, Big Red F, Community Table Kitchen, Cured, The Front Range Catering Company, Hapa Sushi ,Japango Kalita Grill, Kitchen Next Door, Lindsay's Deli, Moe's Broadway Bagel, Motomaki, Organic Sandwich Company, Rincon Argentino, River and Woods, Rosetta Hall, Salt, Santo, Sherpa's, Shine, The Sink, Snarf Sandwiches, T/aco, Wayne's Smoke Shack and West Flanders Brewing Co.

Fortunately, the number of COVID-19 cases has seen a dramatic reduction over the past month allowing the BCH team and other participating organizations to start to resume normal operations. In addition, we are hopeful that your efforts to continue to flatten the curve will lead to allowing restaurants to further ramp up their businesses in the coming weeks.

Both of these developments have led the Feed the Frontlines Boulder organizers to pursue the following plan:

• Continue delivery of meals through July 3rd. This will lead to approximately 25,000 additional meals distributed from local independent restaurants to all participating organizations.
• Any remaining funds as of July 3rd will be transferred to the BCH Foundation COVID-19 Response Fund in support of removing any barriers to providing the best treatment for COVID-19 as well as supporting BCH employees that are facing financial hardships incurred as a result of the pandemic.
• Starting May 19, any further fundraising for the Feed the Frontlines Boulder fund was discontinued. The BCH Foundation continues to focus their fundraising efforts in support of the COVID-19 Response Fund.

This is all subject to change if we see any significant changes with either COVID-19 cases or local/state measures and we will be sure to update you if the timeline shifts.

In the meantime, on behalf of the Feed the Frontlines Boulder team, we would like to thank you for your sense of possibility of what we can achieve when the community comes together in support of a bold vision – your generosity has made a lasting difference.

• Amy Batchelor, BCH Foundation board member and Managing Director of the Anchor Point Foundation
• Grant Besser, President, Boulder Community Health Foundation
• Austin Braun, Social & Digital Media Strategist
• Kyle Judah, Exec Director of Entrepreneurship, CU Boulder College of Engineering
• Erin Pommer, Brand Director of Frasca Hospitality Group
• Vikas Reddy, BCH Foundation board member and Co-Founder of Occipital
• Fiona Schlachter, Chief Product Owner at Maxar Technologies

If you would like to learn more about the BCH Foundation's COVID-19 Response Fund, click here. Visit bch.org/coronavirus to learn more about our response to COVID-19.