by Katie Kyros (ABC7)Sunday, April 5th 2020
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Several restaurants in Montgomery County have teamed up with Silver Spring Cares, a nonprofit, to provide hot meals during the coronavirus crisis.
Small Things Matter then distributes the meals, on Sunday in the El Golfo parking lot, serving a line of cars and loading the meals into trunks as part of their “no-contact distribution.”
El Golfo, Mamma Lucia, McGinty’s, Cielo Rojo, Middle Eastern Cuisine and Takoma Bev Co were among the restaurants providing meals.
“We’re here to comfort people, and let them know there are people out there that care and will help them,” says Roxanne Yamashita of Small Things Matter. “We’re all in this together and we’ll get through it together.”
On Sunday, Small Things Matter volunteers served 50 meals. But since the crisis started, they’ve served more than 4,000.
“Even though the county does give out free meals, there’s a transportation issue for many of them so there’s just a huge increase in need, we’ve been doing distributions like every other day when we used to just do them once a week,” says Yamashita.
In the cars, families contending with the economic insecurity that like the virus, is exponential right now.
“I’m an essential worker, I work for UPS, but my wife, she’s furloughed and shes a dental assistant,” says Claiborne Sellers III, of Takoma Park. On how they’re dealing with the lockdown: “A lot of togetherness, that’s all we can do, just be together in the house on top of each other, keep each other company.”
Laqan Mosley of Gaitherburg pulled up with his family. He’s filed for unemployment after losing his job as a truck driver.
“It’s very frustrating, but at the same time I feel as though there’s going to be a change or something’s going to happen,” he says. “I think it’s going to be better so staying positive.”
To support the meal distribution through Silver Spring Cares, visit the nonprofit’s GoFundMe.
“It’s not just about us coming out the other side, it’s that we come out the other side of this learning a lesson that there’s more things that connect us than divide us,” says volunteer Joe Bush Jr. “That we come out of this with our humanity intact.”