Due to the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in our area, Quality Dining, Inc. and Beacon
Health System are once again calling on the public to support local healthcare workers.

Through Quality Dining’s Feeding the Frontline initiative, every $5 donation from the community feeds one local first responder on the Frontline of COVID-19.

“Our contact at Beacon Healthcare System reached out last week and basically said, ‘S.O.S. our hospital is nearing capacity, our nurses and doctors are exhausted, could you re-launch the program that helped us earlier this year?’ We didn’t have to think about it. The answer was obviously yes,” said Quality Dining President John Firth.

“What happened this spring was new and fresh, and we were just deploying new plans that we made. And what’s happening now is long-term effects of a pandemic. We were going the extra mile then, but now we’re sort of in that long-term run of the marathon,” explained Beacon Health System Vice President of Nursing, Sarah Paturalski. “We know there’s a lot of exhaustion and tension that runs with that and everyone is doing
the best they can on behalf of great care for the community but it’s hard.”

Quality Dining began its Feeding the Frontline program in April, when many healthcare workers in our area started working longer hours due to the pandemic. At that time, hospital leadership said its greatest need was an organized way to get hot food to hospital employees. Over the next two months, Quality Dining collected donations online and at Papa Vino’s Italian Kitchen, then coordinated with leadership at St. Joseph and
Beacon Health systems to feed more than 1,300 first responders.

To make an online donation, visit PapaVinosItalianKitchen.com and click “Feeding the Frontline.”

Donations may also be dropped off at the Quality Dining office at 4220 Edison Lakes Parkway in Mishawaka.