https://wjla.com/news/coronavirus/no-contact-meal-distribution-in-silver-spring-leads-to-connection-need-on-the-rise

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.”

STM hosted 3 food distributions on March 31, 2020 thanks to wonderful donations from Wegmans Germantown and Wegmans Woodmore. Wegmans donated 1115.5 lbs of chicken, soup, beans, lettuce, cucumbers, potatoes, and bread. We were thrilled to share these with our families at Hampshire Tower Apartments, Rolling Terrace ES, and with the TP community. Our thanks to Wegmans, RTES site coordinator Flor Yanes, HTA site coordinator Doris Duarte, and Taylor Dibbert & Leandra Nichola/TPSS Co-op.

Silver Spring Cares has established an amazing initiative which gives our community the opportunity to donate hot meals to families and individuals in need by partnering with local restaurants: Denizens Brewing Co., McGinty’s Public House, El Golfo Restaurant, Takoma Bev. Co. , LocaVino , Cielo-Rojo , Middle Eastern Cuisine. Mamma Lucia, and El Campeon Rotisserie Chicken. Silver Spring Cares is raising funds to help keep these kitchens open by preparing healthy food for those in need to be distributed through Small Things Matter.

So far we have delivered over 2000 meals in the past 8 days, helped families and the elderly at Takoma Park MS, Piney Branch ES, Takoma Park ES, Montgomery Blair HS, Brightwood ES, Victory Tower, Takoma Overlook, Flora Singer ES, and Rolling Terrace ES. We are reaching out to more families and individuals daily. This initiative is all about showing kindness and support of one another, something we need more than ever with the challenging times we are facing. We are humbled and are so appreciative for the support from our amazing partners and this wonderful community. Thank you!

Please support if you can by making a donation here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/silver-spring-cares-community-connection

STM is increasing it’s distributions to help those in need. In addition to its regular monthly distributions at Hampshire Tower Apartments and Rolling Terrace Elementary School, we are offering fresh produce and pantry items to those in the TP community at TPSS Co-op Popups, additional distributions for the elderly at Essex House and Hampshire Tower Apartments, and others as we find out where we can serve. We are currently working to help families at Piney Branch ES, Takoma Park ES, Takoma Park MS, and Blair HS. If you know of a family or individual that would benefit from some free produce please contact us at 202-669-8550. Our thanks to everyone for their amazing support, to Imperfect Foods for increasing their donations of produce to us, to the TPSS Co-op for their support, donations and hands on help, and to our wonderful members for their amazing dedication and help!

Our thanks to STM member Jacob for making these fantastic hand-drawn bookmarks for us. We love the fact that he also made a set of Color Your Own Bookmarks! The children absolutely love to pick out a handmade bookmark at our school-wide distributions and we know that they will have lots of fun choosing from all his amazing designs.
Thank you Jacob!!! #kindness

STM Brooklyn is hard at work spreading kindness where they can. Victoria and Keanu gave out 100 free reusuable bags to customers at Key Foods Supermarket on March 3, 2020. Many of the customers were confused at first, but then responded with a smile when they realized what was happening. #kindness

STM had a great time sharing our literacy program with the kids during the TPES/PBES PTA meeting on March 3, 2020. The evening was filled with reading, bingo, soccer, and bookmark making! Our thanks to Andrian & Mylah (our newest members), Brigitte, and Lana! The kids definitely had an enjoyable evening thanks to all of your hard work and enthusiasm! #kindness

Small Things Matter received a wonderful donation of brand new books and handmade bookmarks from the Leo Club at Farquhar Middle School/Sponsor Karen DeYoung on February 18, 2020. Thank you for all the wonderful books and bookmarks! Did we tell you how much the children enjoy the handmade bookmarks? We can’t wait to share them at our upcoming book distribution this March! Thank you for all of your kindnesses!

Our thanks to Silver Spring Cares#CasserolesforaCause/ Heather Foley & Liz Brent and their wonderful volunteers for the amazing homemade casseroles and quiches (new this year!!). We shared 10 of casseroles at our Red Top Road distribution/Sawa Kamara and 17 of casseroles/quiches with our partners the Difference Makers/Bryan Goehring for their Takoma Park MS distribution this weekend. The families had fun choosing from baked ziti (beef and cheese, turkey and cheese, or broccoli and cheese) or a quiche (broccoli, ham, and cheese). We’ll be sharing more of these delicious meals with our Hampshire Tower Apartments and Rolling Terrace ES families in the coming weeks.
Thank you Silver Spring Cares, you really do!!!! 

🙂 #kindness

STM’s Kokua Foods Program distributed 10,819 lbs of fresh produce, dairy, bread, and grocery items to 300 families this February. We are happy to announce a new distribution location at Red Top Road/Sawa Kamara site manager. Special thanks to Councilmember Tom Hucker for coming out to our RTES distribution for a second time! Our deepest thanks to our members (Daniel, Sean, Lana, Jacob, Jacinto, Luis, Yeni, Gabriel, Seth Grimes, Stephen Whitney, Ken Allen, Jim Douglas, Sarah Stella, Luis Almar, Thomas Jacob, Wei Li, Leandra Nichola, Taylor Dibbert, Sawa Kamara, Aurelie Bush, Yajaira Garay, Josh and Yukiko Malkin, John Anderson), to our partners at Wegmans Germantown, Wegmans Woodmore, Imperfect Foods, TPSS Co-op, U-Haul Moving & Storage Takoma Park for donating the use of their truck, to The Nugent family for their weekly donation of a grocery bag of nonperishable foods, to our site managers Bryan Goehring & Difference Makers/TPMS, Doris Duarte /Hampshire Tower Apts and Helen Winder/WWES, to volunteers (Yacouba, Hadrian, Christopher, Alejandro, Everett, Adonis, Yeiny, Denia, Ashley, Joselyn, WWES Principal Daman Harris, Asst Principal Liz Collins, Dora Stephey, Abebe Kassaye, Jill Asato, Iris Atezana, Josefina, Chuck Huband, Pia Acol, Wendy Kent, Kevin Buchanan, Michelle Robinson, Kia Robinson), and to AmeriCorps The Choice Program at UMBC for their tireless dedication and hard work.
If you are interested in volunteering us please contact us! www.smallthingsmatter.org