BALTIMORE -- If you're a regular at Kitsch, Jackie Mearman probably knows your name. She'll greet Johns Hopkins University students crossing the street for a pick-me-up at the cafe and neighbors dropping in for a pastry. And on Monday, as a woman loudly chatted up another customer by the front door, Mearman whispered to a reporter, "I know she's going to talk forever."
That kind of connection is the Baltimore way, said Mearman, the owner of the 400-square-foot eatery filled with pictures of family and staff, paintings by customers and cork bulletin boards for locals to advertise community street cleanups and book clubs. And it wouldn't waver when a cargo ship took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, a disaster that temporarily closed the port and is presumed to have killed six construction workers.
Mearman is among the many small-business owners in Baltimore who have donated food to first responders and other recovery workers in the week and a half since the accident. Some of the businesses, like Kitsch's, are in the heart of Baltimore, more than half an hour away from the bridge site. Members of the community have also raised more than half a million dollars for the families of the six victims.
Local, state and federal responders "have received generous donations of meals and provisions from local establishments, which has helped our members stay focused on the task at hand," said Matthew West, a spokesman for the unified command of the bridge response, an umbrella group of agencies led by the Coast Guard, in an emailed statement.
Mearman first heard of the bridge collapse on Instagram at 3 a.m. on March 26, moments after rushing to the hospital to help a friend who was in labor.
Later that morning, Mearman said her mother texted her to ask, "Are you going to donate food?" She knew her cafe could help. She raised $500 from friends and neighbors and contributed a few hundred dollars of her own, all of which went to making food for first responders.
To help coordinate the food donations, she reached out to Bobby LaPin, a local boat captain and community linchpin. Since then, he has worked with 12 restaurants to give food to aid and rescue workers.
Over the next days, more businesses joined in the effort, and hundreds of sandwiches and drinks poured in. The Coast Guard asked for energy drinks, LaPin said; businesses donated them. Some stranded ship crew members asked for cookies and other snacks -- a "morale booster," Mearman said. They got those, too. LaPin said a hot dinner is particularly important. "It soothes the soul after a long day on the front lines of a disaster," he said. "We made sure those coming to the aid of Baltimore had a hot meal every night."
Large businesses such as Wawa are donating, too, LaPin said. "But it's an especially good feeling when local businesses, who struggle on a normal day to make ends meet, dig even deeper and work even harder to take care of their hometown," he said.
The donations come as Gov. Wes Moore (D) and other public officials warn about the economic crisis that could arise from the shutdown of the Port of Baltimore, which handled 52.2 million tons of foreign cargo last year, worth nearly $81 billion, and created more than 15,000 jobs.
When a disaster like this happens and federal organizations such as the Coast Guard are deployed, a catering contract is typically established to feed these workers. As of Monday morning, Mearman hadn't heard about a finalized contract. "So ... we're going to do dinner tonight," she said.
She and her staff prepared a meal that included mac and cheese and grilled broccoli. "Some even came back for seconds," Mearman said the next morning.
Witt O'Brien's, a crisis and emergency management group affiliated with the Dali's owners, finalized a food catering contract on Tuesday, a week after the collapse, West said. Until then, he said, responders "received meals and provisions through the generous, unsolicited contributions of local establishments" and the community.
If the Key Bridge workers wanted quintessential Baltimore cuisine -- meat and fish sandwiches seasoned with Old Bay -- Nick's Fish House was on it. Staff there volunteered to work early-morning shifts to prepare food donations of hundreds of sandwiches at a time, said Carly Eutsler, the restaurant's director of operations.
"We make food. That's what I have to give," Eutsler said. On the day of the collapse, Nick's Fish House fed about 200 people in the morning and 200 in the evening, she said. By day three, it was feeding about 400 people just for breakfast.
Mearman and Eutsler weren't sure how long they'd need to provide food donations. Now that the catering contract is in place, Mearman said she would turn her attention to feeding the ship workers stuck on vessels in the port without visas. But she said if food was no longer needed, she could switch to lending financial and spiritual support.
Eutsler declined to specify how much money Nick's Fish House had spent on donated food. "I won't even talk about that," she said. (The restaurant typically charges $13 to $25 per sandwich.)
Then Eutsler and her crew loaded a van with tuna, turkey and ham sandwiches and drove down the fish house's gravel-filled alley, headed for the first responders by the port, just in time for lunch.
The Washington Post is exploring how the bridge collapse is affecting regional business owners. We would like to hear about your experience and may include it in a collection of reader stories. If you would like to share your story, please get in touch here.
This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/04/baltimore-bridge-food-donations-businesses/
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