Christmas is a time of giving and Downtown Greensboro Inc. (DGI) has taken that to heart.
From Dec. 1 through Dec. 12, not the traditional 12 days of Christmas, but for 12 days in the Christmas, season DGI will be providing 250 warm meals a day to Greensboro Urban Ministry for distribution to those in need. That’s a total of 3,000 warm meals.
The cost of the “12 Days of Meals” is $36,000 and DGI is using a GoFundMe drive to help pay the cost. If additional money is raised, the 12 Days of Meals could become the 14 Days of Meals or the 20 Days of Meals.
The campaign is an effort to help Urban Ministry, which is currently having problems with its kitchen, to help those who need a warm meal and to help downtown restaurants that can now count on having orders for a certain number of meals for 12 days. Included in the cost is a 20 percent gratuity for the staff at the participating restaurants.
Those currently signed up to participate in the 12 Days of Meals include 1618 Downtown, Acropolis, Baked Downtown, Blue Denim, Cheesecakes by Alex, Chez Genese, Cincy’s, Crafted, Dames Chicken and Waffles, Deep Roots Market, Ghassan’s, Heavenly Buffaloes, Jerusalem Market, Liberty Oak, Los Chicos, MACHETE, Manny’s Universal Cafe, Mellow Mushroom, Midori, Natty Greene’s, Undercurrent, and White and Wood.
If you would like to participate, $12 will provide one meal and you can do so by going to 12 Days of Meals.
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been easy on anyone, but it has been particularly hard on people experiencing homelessness and on those in the restaurant business. Restaurants were completely closed for in-house dining for two months and currently are operating at 50 percent capacity, with the fear that with COVID-19 cases rising that could be reduced or eliminated by executive order again.
Why is there a gratuity for a charitable expense?
What is the “problem” with the kitchen? I have donated yearly directly to the Urban Ministry. My church takes food donations to the Urban Ministry, so just to save my church the cost/trouble, and take it to the Ministry myself. Not so if their kitchen is not functioning.
The costs of a commercially-supplied meal far exceeds food cooked in the Ministry’s kitchen. Furthermore, these businesses will make a profit on their Ministry sales. This is not charity.