Lori Niehaus '18 (at right) delivers meals to Holy Cross Hospital.
For Lori Niehaus ’18, food and community are inextricably linked.
During a Fulbright teaching assistantship in Malaysia last year, the former biology and international studies major bonded with local families by sharing meals in their homes. 现在，作为 喂前线芝加哥, she’s helping restaurants in her home state stay afloat while delivering food to essential workers.
The transition from teaching in a remote village to running a nonprofit in the U.S. didn’t happen overnight, but it came close. After finishing her Fulbright grant in November, Niehaus spent three months traveling before returning to her parents’ home in February to plot her next move. 一个月后, the coronavirus pandemic swept the midwest, leading the city of Chicago to shut down all non-essential businesses, 包括餐厅.
喂前线芝加哥 in action.
在混乱中, Niehaus noticed an Instagram post by a Fulbright friend in Houston, Texas who was purchasing food from local restaurants and delivering it to healthcare workers. 灵感了.
“I wasn't really doing anything because I hadn't started applying for jobs yet, and I realized I had the time and resources to put into a project,”她说。. “So I threw up an Instagram post and made a GoFundMe, 然后24小时后, I got a text from some other Fulbright people in our program who are in the Chicago area as well, 说他们想参与进来. Three of us just started building it up and figuring out where we wanted to go with it.”
The mission of 喂前线芝加哥 is simple: support local restaurants by purchasing meals to go; support essential workers by delivering meals to them. Executing that mission, as Niehaus and her colleagues quickly discovered, was more difficult.
“The first few weeks were crazy,” Niehaus recalled. “We were making a hundred phone calls every day and then getting in our cars and driving all over the city. It was pretty chaotic and definitely not sustainable.”
After some initial growing pains, however, the team has hit their stride. Volunteers are now in charge of picking up and delivering food, freeing up Niehaus and a staff of 12 to handle logistics and fundraising. The organization has become adept at identifying “pockets of need”—corners of the city where help has been slow to arrive.
Niehaus (far right) with 喂前线芝加哥 co-founders Rachel Jacoby and Amy Verrando.
“We noticed that there wasn’t a lot of support or resources going into certain communities, especially in areas like the south and west sides of Chicago,Niehaus说. “我们一直在网上寻找, calling hospitals and other recipient centers and seeing if they've been receiving support and donations, 如果他们没有, 将它们添加到我们的列表中.”
And while the “front line” in the nonprofit’s name initially referred to healthcare workers, the team has begun delivering meals to pharmacy workers, 养老院员工, 以及COVID-19测试点的工作人员. Recently, they brought bags of restaurant meals to employees at a local Walmart.
“It varies week to week,” said Niehaus. “We’re staying flexible with our mission and figuring out how we can really make an impact on the communities that need it the most.”
随着其业务的发展, 喂前线芝加哥 has maintained a steady stream of support, 筹集了40多美元,2个月就有5000万. 在5月中旬, 刚刚超过3,700 meals had been delivered to frontline workers, supporting 96 restaurants in the process. A large boost in numbers came after the organization hosted a virtual benefit concert on its Facebook页面 featuring performances by Tim McGraw and Avril Lavigne.
人多力量大
$40,554
截至2020年5月11日筹集的美元
3,784
Meals delivered to frontline workers
96
支持本地餐厅
Niehaus never anticipated starting and running a nonprofit after graduation—in September, she plans to pursue a graduate degree in epidemiology—but her commitment to giving back was strengthened during her time at 电子游戏软件. She cites her coursework as well as her involvement in GlobeMed, a public health and social justice club on campus, with teaching the importance of conversation and partnership in building community.
Feed the Front Line has given her an opportunity to put those learnings into practice every day, while taking action at a time when many feel helpless.
“One of my BC courses taught us that whatever context you’re living in, 你还是可以有所作为的,”她说。. “I have a tendency toward fatalism or cynicism, but lifting myself out of that and focusing on the practical ways that I can do something, 我可以帮助别人, that's something I’ve carried with me in this work.”
Alix Hackett | University Communications | May 2020