Since its launch in March, Sustain the Line is an initiative from an unlikely set of businesses that helps American and Canadian restaurants provide food to frontline healthcare workers, and the response has been overwhelming.
In short, it's a matching service that does little more than connect businesses with a range of essential services, but that's all it needs to be. Here's how it works: If you or someone you know is a food provider—say, a restaurant—that's willing and able to make food and deliver it to local healthcare workers in your area, Sustain the Line helps put people in contact; that's it. People are also invited to donate and help support the ongoing efforts of the initiative.
In as little as two weeks, Sustain the Line began receiving several hundred site visits a day alongside a steady stream of emails day and night, seeking to put much-needed food in the hands of healthcare workers.
It started when the founders of Mission Watch Company in Toronto, Ontario and the Old Road BBQ of Nova Scotia combined forces to feed frontline workers across the province of Nova Scotia. Not long after this began, New Jersey's digital marketing company NextLevel, the legal services company Conduit Law and Montreal, Quebec's own Aron Brand joined, expanding the services of Sustain the Line throughout the US and Canada.
We couldn't stand by and do nothing in this massive crisis," explains Aron Solomon of Aron Brand of the initiative's creation. "We decided that we wanted to save small restaurants and catering businesses as well as feed the heroes on the frontline of the health battle. Six hours later I had built the site and we were live."
Sustain the Line doesn't have anything to do with the transactional part of the connection between food providers and healthcare workers, but it is providing a connection that can be hard to make.
"We don't take a cent and we don't want to touch money," Solomon adds. "I'm always sceptical (perhaps overly so) of so many fundraising that enrich the people running them through administrative or transaction fees. All we want to do is help. So by directly connecting supporters and food businesses that would never have found each other, everyone wins."
It's a lifeline that's helping local food businesses stay afloat while making things easier for the amazing medical teams working non-stop. "I seriously can't overstate how small food businesses are just getting hammered by this virus. Just open a food delivery app here in Montreal and you'll see how many restaurants are unavailable. Most won't survive an extended crisis."
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