(From left) Janet Meyers and Claudia Biegler of Meaningful Meals
When the coronavirus pandemic caused the United States to shut down in March, frontline health workers — those most easily exposed to the virus because they regularly come into contact with infected patients — were immediately cast into the spotlight. They worked long hours, sacrificing time with their families and risking their own health to treat the patients filling emergency rooms and hospital beds.
Claudia Biegler and Janet Meyers, two longtime educators in Richmond, wanted to help those workers. Friends for more than 35 years, they had both worked in service to the community over the years. The intensity of the pandemic and concern for a friend’s daughter who was working in an assisted living facility motivated the pair to perform an act of kindness that would grow into the organization Meaningful Meals.
“We were taken by the fact that COVID-19 was becoming rampant in our community because a friend’s daughter was working as part of the recreation team at Beth Sholom,” Biegler says. “We wanted to honor [the workers there] and decided to send eight meals for everyone on her team.”
The appreciation Biegler and Meyers received motivated them to do it again. This time, they called the CVS at Lauderdale Drive and Patterson Avenue where they got their prescriptions filled. “I spoke with Pharmacist Scott Flint, and when I suggested that we honor him and his group with a meal, he started crying,” Biegler says. “He said, ‘No one ever thinks of us.’ ”
Biegler says she and Meyers then realized that while doctors and nurses receive the most attention and praise as frontline heroes, there are many others putting their lives at risk in this health crisis. The duo decided to target those unsung heroes. A kind gesture of delivering eight meals to a nursing home has grown to 170 meals planned for the month of December, and they will have provided 550 meals by the end of the year.
Meaningful Meals has delivered to several groups in the Bon Secours and HCA health systems, and meals are scheduled to be delivered to Communities in Schools and The Daily Planet in December. In January, The McGuire VA Medical Center is set to receive meals, and plans are in the works for delivery of meals to VCU Health workers.
Funding for the endeavor started with both women asking four or five friends for donations and applying the contributions to the cost of lunch preparation and delivery from Garnish, a local catering company. “Because of COVID, we wanted to have the meals delivered, and by a local company,” Biegler says. She has known Garnish’s owner, Louis Campbell, since he was 13 and used to drive him to Sunday school.
A collection of meals awaiting delivery
At a time when many nonprofits are desperate for funding to keep their doors open, Meaningful Meals grew quickly. After four months, the number of meals being delivered doubled from 20 to 25 per month to 50, and Biegler and Meyers were overwhelmed with the donations coming in.
“By the end of July, there were too many checks for us to handle as just a two-person operation,” Biegler says. Her daughter, a CPA, recommended that they partner with a foundation. They decided on the name Meaningful Meals, Biegler’s son-in-law created a website for them, and she and Meyers approached Robert I. Nomberg, president and CEO of the Richmond Jewish Foundation, to help manage donations.
Appreciation from the workers has been very gratifying, they say. But the generosity of those they have fed has been even more touching and has opened their eyes to other behind-the-scenes employees who do not immediately come to mind as frontline health workers.
When Biegler notified the head nurse of a COVID-19 unit that they were delivering meals to them, the nurse called her back with a request: “The nurse said they’d had a team meeting and would like to have their lunches delivered to the housekeeping staff, because they hardly get recognized,” she says. Biegler and Meyers decided to fund lunches for both the team of nurses and the housekeeping staff.
Another example of generosity emerged when they contacted a firehouse in Henrico and offered to have meals delivered to the firefighters there. A spokesperson said people in the neighborhood bring them food, and the firefighters also cook for one another. They requested that their meals be delivered to the 911 call center staff instead.
When asked if Meaningful Meals will expand beyond its current mission, Biegler and Meyers say that frontline health workers and the COVID-19 crisis remain their immediate focus for now. They also continue to count their blessings.
“Without people’s hearts we would not have anything,” Biegler says. “We are thrilled at the outpouring of support we’ve received.”
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