Skip to content

The Bright Side

Meal Train

COVID-19 is loosening its grip in Connecticut and the Meal Train for Sharon Hospital pulled into its station for the last time last Friday, having delivered about 1,000 meals for frontline workers at Sharon Hospital and neighboring Sharon Health Care.

The effort was organized by Lydia Moore, Jill Drew and Lori Carlson. “We started the Meal Train for Sharon Hospital in an effort to boost morale for the hospital staff,” said Moore, “and worked with hospital administrators to come up with the goal of having the community provide meals for a total of 50 employees on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the month of May.”

The administrators provided guidelines for no-contact deliveries and made sure the meals were delivered to members of the various staffs in the hospital. The Meal Train for the hospital was so successful, with donors signing up for all the available spots in less than 24 hours, it was soon decided to expand the effort to Sharon Health Care which had by then been set up to care for recovering COVID patients.

“Working with Sawyer Thornton, who runs the facility, we decided on a goal to provide meals for all 100 employees once a week, every Wednesday in May,” Moore said. “After those spots quickly filled up, we added the last two Fridays in May as well.

Donors, who were asked to provide meals for one of five slots (20 meals each), included private individuals, companies, neighborhoods and other organizations.

“It went incredibly well,” said Carlson. “We delivered the last meals to the hospital last Thursday and to Sharon Health Care on Friday. We did a lot of late-night ZOOMing and there was a lot of coordination but it was fantastic and the feedback has been very positive.”

Meals were purchased from participating restaurants.

While the current effort has ended, Carlson said she feels there is more to do. “It felt good to help,” she said, “and I think we will find other needs.”

Back
to
Top