Together, let's support local restaurants and the hungry in our community.

GiftAMeal's Response to COVID-19

To Our GiftAMeal Family,

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I wanted to reach out and let you know what we are doing in the face of this challenging time. In short, the restaurants we all love are being hit hard, and so are those most in need of our help. 

 

A majority of the community members supported through GiftAMeal are children and the elderly. With schools in flux, children relying on meals normally provided are facing a new challenge as social services scramble to readjust. At the same time, older community members, the most at-risk population for COVID-19, need our support now more than ever. 

 

Just as the community is struggling, so are many restaurants in the face of public health guidelines designed to contain the spread of this virus. Employees depend on their jobs to pay bills and make rent, and our partners are doing their best to mitigate the effects of this crisis on their staff. But they cannot do it without the support of the public. 

 

It may be a drop in the ocean but we are determined to continue with our mission and help how we can.

 

So here's our plan:

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2) Immediate financial support of hunger relief agencies - $5,000 matching challenge, $22,000 raised so far

Having spoken to Operation Food Search about their needs, we will be making our donations for the next few months early to provide immediate funding to get food to those facing hunger. We may be a small startup with limited means but we're launching a campaign to match donations, up to $5,000, for our food bank partner. If you would like to contribute, click here.



3) Publicity for restaurants undergoing fast changes via social media and a new podcast

With hundreds of restaurants forced to quickly find new avenues to pay their staff, we want to keep GiftAMeal’s 35,000+ loyal restaurant customers aware of all avenues to support their favorite restaurants via GiftAMeal’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Many of our partner restaurants are expanding take-out and delivery programs to keep serving the community and are implementing extremely thorough health precautions to keep us all safe.​ We also launched a new podcast called 'Food on the Table' for restaurants to share their stories with the community. The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.



4) Direct coordination of food donations from restaurants

We are working to coordinate food donations with Operation Food Search. If you know of any restaurant that has a surplus that is interested in donating food to the community, please let me know or have them contact Jack Baran of OFS directly at jack.baran@operationfoodsearch.org. It's tax-deductible too!



5) Program cost relief for struggling restaurants

I emailed our partner restaurants (who normally pay $49-$149/month to fund the program costs and donations), extending an offer to self-fund the program for restaurants unable to contribute in the months of March and April so that food donations and restaurant customers could continue to flow at a time when they are most needed. We are a small startup with limited means, but this is a time where we can shine the brightest. We’ve always been struck by the generosity and love of community that our partner restaurant operators have shown, and even if it’s a drop in the bucket, we are going to help however we can.



1) Donation program available for offsite customers

We just launched an update to the GiftAMeal app that will temporarily allow users to take pictures off-site to donate meals for take-out, delivery, and gift card purchases. We will do this by lifting the location requirement of needing to be at a partner restaurant when you take the photo and we will move to manual verification. PLEASE support our local partner restaurants that are struggling during this difficult time.



Together, we will all get through this. Thank you for your support and please stay safe. If you need help during this time, please visit the Operation Food Search website. 

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Best,

Andrew Glantz

Founder & CEO of GiftAMeal

How YOU Can Help

Support our Partner Restaurants

Click HERE for GiftAMeal Partner Restaurant List

Sort restaurants by take-out, curbside pickup, delivery, and gift cards!

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Just click the 'Filter' button on the top right of the app.

Purchase a gift card by clicking the restaurant's name!

Donate