Club launches Help The Heroes food delivery project to support Howard University Hospital staff

Anita L.A. Jenkins, Howard University Hospital chief executive, said the National Press Club is acting as a family would by launching Help The Heroes, an initiative that will deliver meals to hospital staff who are on the front lines in battling the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“Have you eaten?” is a family thing to say, she said at a Sept. 24 press conference at the Club that formally kicked off the program. And when someone offers a meal, stressed and exhausted hospital staff knows they care, she said.

"What you said to our heroes was 'Here’s a meal. We want you to be fed,'” Jenkins said.

Ed Lewis, director of public policy communications for Toyota who has been a member of the Club for three decades and is a graduate of Howard University, announced that Toyota has donated $5,000 to the project and is loaning a new van for the next year to transport meals to the hospital.

Club President Michael Freedman announced that The Washington Post is partnering in the project with a full-page ad, and will publicize the project through its food-related channel.

The goal of the project is to eventually deliver 300 meals a day five days a week, ramping up from a start in October with 100 meals a day, two days a week. Club staff from the Reliable Source and Fourth Estate restaurants will prepare meals and other staff will deliver them.

The project had raised $10,000 prior to the launch but needs other corporate and individual contributions to reach its goal. Contribute by credit card online and join members of the community saying, “Here’s a meal.”

Anita L.A. Jenkins, CEO of Howard University Hospital, explains how the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a particularly difficult challenge to the hospital staff and the D.C. community as a whole. She helped announce the launch of the Help The Heroes project at a news conference Sept. 24 at the National Press Club. Ed Lewis, director of public policy communications at Toyota, and Mike Freedman, president of the National Press Club, look on as representatives of the other partners in the project. Photo by Alan Kotok