Ford Fund Mobilizes Teams, Resources to Help Feed and Transport Henry Ford Hospital Personnel
Corktown restaurants, Eastern Market and Lincoln Motor Company team up to help
DEARBORN, Michigan — Hard-working healthcare professionals at Henry Ford Hospital locations in Detroit, Dearborn and Brownstown Township, Michigan are receiving lunches and dinners thanks to a new collaboration between Ford Fund, Corktown restaurants, Eastern Market and the Lincoln Motor Company.
With help from a Ford Fund grant, Corktown restaurants—Brooklyn Street Local, Folk Detroit, IMA, McShane's Irish Pub, Michigan & Trumbull and Onassis Coney Island—are cooking up dinners for workers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The menu will include a variety of offerings from shepherd's pie and cornbread to quiche with fruit salad, tuna melt with fries, pizza and vegetarian options.
"Our purpose on earth is to serve others and that's what we're doing," said Bob Roberts, president, Corktown Business Association. "And then you add the gratification of where these meals are going. The doctors, nurses and emergency room folks, I can't fathom what their daily routine is like."
"The support from our community during this unprecedented time has been incredibly moving," said Angela Crooms, system director, Food and Nutrition, Henry Ford Hospital. "They are helping our frontline teams keep up their strength for the work they are doing for our patients. Ford Motor Company Fund's generosity is remarkable!"
Ford Fund also provided a grant to Eastern Market, which is preparing daily lunches for healthcare workers at Henry Ford Brownstown and Henry Ford Dearborn.
"The partnership Henry Ford Health System shares with Ford Motor Company and its charitable Fund is truly special in the best of times; in these times it is extraordinary," said Michele Harrison Sears, senior director, Development Office Foundation Relations, Henry Ford Health System. "I cannot overstate how much these gestures of support and appreciation mean to our frontline staff working long, demanding shifts."
Ford Fund is helping coordinate delivery of the meals, as well, in collaboration with the Lincoln Personal Driver pilot program—a transportation service that allows Lincoln clients to hire professional drivers by the hour using some of the brand's newest vehicles. The program's fleet of vehicles and professional drivers are transporting meals to the hospitals so doctors, nurses and emergency personnel tirelessly tending to patients struggling with COVID-19 can be fed.
The hospital meal deliveries are among the many activities coordinated by Ford and Ford Fund to help local hospitals during the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier this month, Ford Motor Company loaned two unused employee shuttle vans to Henry Ford Hospital to help transport out-of-town volunteer doctors and nurses to-and-from the airport, local hotels and hospitals. Ford Fund also redirected $200,000 in funding to help Henry Ford Health System and Beaumont Hospitals with medical supplies and IT support during the pandemic.
"The Transits on loan from Ford Motor Company Fund have been amazingly helpful in shuttling our wonderful travel nurses from out of state who have recently arrived to assist us, employees working long shifts unable to make the drive home and frontline clinical staff who must be separated from their loved ones," said AJ Evans, consultant, Equal Employment Relations and Workforce Diversity, Henry Ford Health System. "Transportation is now one less thing for our hardworking employees to worry about."