BALTIMORE — If you're a regular at Kitsch, Jackie Meerman probably knows your name. She plans to greet Johns Hopkins University students who cross the street for a snack at her cafe and neighbors who stop by for a pastry. And on Monday, as a woman was yelling at another customer in the doorway, Meerman whispered to a reporter: “She'll be talking forever,” she said.
This kind of connection is the Baltimore way, Meerman said. The owners of the 400-square-foot restaurant say it's filled with photos of family and staff, drawings by customers and cork bulletin boards for local residents to promote local street sweeps and book clubs. And that belief remained even when a cargo ship destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26th. The disaster caused the temporary closure of the port and is estimated to have killed six construction workers.
Meerman is one of many Baltimore small business owners who donated food to first responders and other recovery workers in the week and a half since the disaster. Some stores, such as Kitsch's, are located in downtown Baltimore, more than 30 minutes from the bridge site. Community members also raised more than $500,000 for the families of the six victims.
Local, state and federal response forces “have received generous donations of meals and food from local facilities, which has allowed our members to remain focused on the mission at hand,” the Unified Command for Bridge Response said. Department spokesman Matthew West said. A group of government agencies led by the Coast Guard issued an emailed statement.
Meerman first heard about the bridge collapse on Instagram at 3 a.m. on March 26, shortly after rushing to the hospital to help a friend in labor.
Later that morning, Mierman said she received an email from her mother asking if she was going to donate food. She knew her own cafe would help her. She raised $500 from her friends and neighbors and also donated several hundred dollars of her own money, all of which went into making food for her first responders.
To coordinate food donations, she contacted Bobby Lapin, a local boat captain and a pillar in the community. Since then, he has partnered with her 12 restaurants to provide food to those involved in aid and relief efforts.
Over the next days, more businesses joined the effort, and hundreds of sandwiches and drinks poured in. The Coast Guard asked for energy drinks, Lapin said. Companies donated. Some of the stranded ship's crew asked for cookies and other snacks “to boost morale,” Meerman said. They got it too. Lapin said a hot dinner is especially important. “It calms me down after a long day on the front lines of a disaster,” he said. “We made sure those who came to support us in Baltimore had a hot meal every night.”
Large companies such as Wawa are also making donations, Lapin said. “But it feels especially good when local businesses that are struggling to make ends meet are digging deeper and working even harder to care for their hometown,” he said. .
The donation comes as Gov. Wes Moore (D) and other public officials have warned of an economic crisis that could result from the closure of the Port of Baltimore, which handled 52.2 million tons of foreign cargo last year, worth about $81 billion. It was held in the middle of the day. Over 15,000 jobs.
When a disaster like this occurs and a federal agency such as the Coast Guard is called in, a catering contract is typically entered into to provide meals for these workers. As of Monday morning, Meerman had not heard of a final deal. “So…we're going to have dinner tonight,” she said.
She and her staff prepared meals such as macaroni and cheese and grilled broccoli. “Some people came back for a few seconds,” Meerman said the next morning.
Witt O'Brien's, a crisis and emergency management group affiliated with Dali's owner, signed the meal catering contract on Tuesday, a week after the collapse, West said. Until then, responders “received meals and provisions through generous, unsolicited donations from local facilities and the community,” he said.
If Key Bridge workers wanted a typical Baltimore meal, a meat and fish sandwich seasoned with Old Bay, Nick's Fish House was the place to be. Carly Oitzler, the restaurant's director of operations, said staff members volunteered early morning shifts to prepare hundreds of sandwiches at a time for donation.
“We make food. That's what I have to give,” Oitzler said. On the day of the collapse, Nick's Fish House fed about 200 people in the morning and evening, she said. By the third day, they were able to feed about 400 people just for breakfast.
Meerman and Oitzler didn't know how long they would need to provide food donations. Now that the catering contract has been signed, Meerman said he will focus on feeding seafarers stuck on ships in ports without visas. But once they no longer need food, they can switch to lending for financial and emotional support, she said.
Oitzler declined to say how much money Nick's Fish House spent on food donations. “We don’t talk about it,” she said. (Restaurants typically charge between $13 and $25 per sandwich.)
Oitzler and his crew then loaded the van with tuna, turkey and ham sandwiches and drove down the gravel alley of the fish store, heading to first responders near the port just in time for lunch.
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