The Washington Post, September 15, Meg’s choice: She could reopen her diner. But what about the hungry people she’s feeding?
Days after Heriford closed her doors in March and laid off her staff, she and two former employees began making sack lunches for anybody in town who needed one — “no strings, no questions, no substitutions.” The need was acute — the homeless population had been increasing even before the pandemic with 9,100 people in the county out of work in April, about a quarter of them from the food service industry.
At first, it was a simple: white paper bags with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some chips, but word spread quickly. Eventually, they were feeding more than 200 a day in a program funded by community donations, some 13,000 meals for furloughed factory workers, laid-off bartenders, cleaners with no homes to clean, mechanics with nothing to repair.
Now, her state is in the middle of a rocky reopening and Heriford, 46, finds herself facing the same tough decisions many restaurateurs and chefs are grappling with across the country as the restaurant industry recovery has stalled and the United States remains in the grip of the deadly coronavirus.
