Volunteers create platform to provide meals to people in need

A team of volunteers created OpenMeal, a platform that supports two vulnerable communities: restaurants struggling to keep their businesses open and families struggling to get food. The platform was developed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the team of volunteers, mostly of Asian descent, realized that Asian-American restaurants and low income families were being severely affect by the social-economic side effects of the pandemic.

The underlying idea is to create a net to connect sponsor, local restaurants and people in need of food. A sponsor is anyone willing to contribute, who donates money to a universal fund that is equally distributed between the restaurants that are part of the movement. The restaurants then use the funds to prepare the food and convert them into meal credits, that can be claimed by people in need to “purchase” the meals. At the website, people in need of food can fill in a request form, which will then be reviewed by the OpenMeal team.

The operations started with four restaurants in San Francisco Chinatown but the goal is to spread the project to major cities across the country. They are also collaborating to provide meals to healthcare workers at local hospitals and the YMCA.

“Our mission is to support those who are now unemployed and food-insecure while benefiting affected local restaurants. We care about the well-being of people in our community and we are passionate about reviving the economy to make a difference.” States a press release issued by the team behind the project.

Adapted from: https://medium.com/@openmeal/helping-struggling-restaurants-individuals-...

More information: https://www.openmeal.org/