Alumna Delivers Meals to Essential Health Care Workers

Pitt alumna Sara Cannon (A&S ’06) was one of 10 volunteers responsible for distributing more than 400 meals to Pittsburgh-area hospitals this month.

On April 12, just 10 days after its establishment, Frontline Foods PGH distributed 165 meals to West Penn and Allegheny General Hospitals with local restaurant partners. And on April 17, the organization and its restaurant partners provided 300 additional meals to Allegheny General and UPMC East.

Frontline Foods PGH is a local chapter of a national grassroots organization Frontline Foods that raises money from the community to support local restaurants and feed health care workers responding to the COVID-19 crisis. The Pittsburgh chapter was established earlier this month by a small crew of volunteers that included Cannon who met through college and work experience in Pittsburgh.

“We have an amazing pipeline of restaurant and hospital partnerships in addition to those who have already executed on deliveries,” said Cannon.

Frontline Foods PGH intends to remain a resource and partner to hospitals and restaurants as long as it takes, collecting donations for restaurants, who prepare and deliver meal boxes safely.

“The restaurant industry has been absolutely crushed by stay-home orders, and this has been an effective formula to lend them some stability while taking care of our local caregivers,” said Cannon, who was blown away by the response from hospitals.

“After our first delivery, we received so many messages from meal recipients thanking us, and telling us that the meal box they received was a bright spot in their stressful days,” she said.

Nationally, Frontline Food’s 500 volunteers have helped raise more than $2 million and deliver more than 70,000 meals to workers in over 150 hospitals nationwide.