Covid-19: World Central Kitchen

In 2010, in response to the Haiti earthquake, Spanish American celebrity chef and restaurateur José Andrés—he's got 19 enterprises, ranging from Michelin two-star signature restaurants to food trucks—launched World Central Kitchen, an NGO consortium bringing food to people touched (or should that be slammed) by disasters. Since then he has organized food distribution in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Zambia, Peru, Cuba, Uganda, and Cambodia, as well as in the United States and Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Maria and Dorian.

That's when I first heard about him, with Puerto Rico. And today my friend Lynn mentioned all that he's doing now, during the Covid-19 crisis. So I went to the World Central Kitchen website, and found recent stories, giving updates on a new enterprise, #ChefsforAmerica:

(Yes, you can donate.)

Here is a short video featuring Danny Barber, who has been helping WCK distribute meals in the Bronx for over six weeks now. These are our local heroes!

"In California," the website states as of week 6, "we’re working with the United Farm Workers Foundation to provide meals to farmworkers in California’s Central Valley. Partnering with local restaurants in Delano, the site of a famous farmworkers’ strike, we set up a drive-through site for the community to pick up meals after a long day of work."

It is beautiful, and encouraging among all the other news, to read about the efforts being made to make sure that people in need find nourishment, now in more than 30 U.S. states and Spain, partnering with local restaurants. The caring and selflessness.

As of yesterday, 6,503,213 meals had been served during the past two months.

Here is José Andrés speaking with Guy Raz of "How I Built This," on April 23, about feeding people in a crisis (it kicks off at about 8 minutes, and just gets more passionate; he's a joy to listen to:

I am so happy to know that there are people like José Andrés, who care about people. It gives me hope.

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Monterey County is up to 277 confirmed cases, which is 27 more than when I last posted, 10 more than yesterday; holding steady at 6 deaths. Only 3,952 people have been tested: 0.9 percent of the total population of the county (just over 434,000).

Be safe. Eat well. Exercise! Stay healthy.