PORTLAND, Maine — A family meal, in the hospitality industry, is a time when the staff gets to eat together and be treated like family.
One Portland-based group, Those Familiar Spirits has taken this idea and reworked it to deliver free food to hospitality staff who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Starting this Sunday, "Family Meal" will start delivering homemade lasagna or mac n’ cheese meals to any laid-off restaurant and bar staff in Portland. The food is provided on a first-come-first-serve basis and if the demand exceeds the supply, organizers will cycle through the list on the following week.
Organizers tell us donations are vitally important, and the community has shown up to make it happen.
“Anyone in the community can get involved in this of course and help out people. It’s one of those times where everyone has been doing a really great job at coming together and working together. This is just another aspect of that," said Briana Volk, one of the co-founders.
“It's going to be really nice to not have to cook one meal for the week, you know? And I think people are really looking forward to that," explained Hayley Wilson, the other Family Meal co-founder.
For information about Family Meal like how to sign up or learning how to donate, you can visit https://www.portlandfoodmap.com/family-meal/.
At NEWS CENTER Maine, we're focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the illness. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: /coronavirus