Battle Creek Group Supports Area Restaurants & Frontline Heroes

A Battle Creek community group has found the perfect way to show appreciation to area frontline heroes while supporting local restaurants who have been struggling amidst COVID-19 related orders.

While many local restaurants are struggling to stay afloat, there even more frontline healthcare workers struggling to keep up with the demand they've been facing since March 10, 2020, when the first two COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Michigan.

Two local frontline employees recently approached local entrepreneurs, Jonathan Galbreath owner of Jonic IT, Michael and Steven Pignataro owners of 'corePHP'. They are two of the people responsible for the local food delivery and carry out app Eats BC. That conversation birthed an idea that not only shows our frontline heroes appreciation but is putting money in the pocket of our local unique restaurants struggling through these difficult times.

Here's how Jonathan Galbreath, Owner of Jonic IT Consulting LLC, explains how the idea came about and how it works:

We were approached a couple of weeks ago by AC and Trinity they are both frontline workers and they wanted to set up a non-profit to provide meals to frontline workers. They like what EatsBC had to offer because we only support local restaurants and we teamed up to make the campaign. We are going to be providing meals every week to frontline workers all over Battle Creek. In the case that the facility provides 24-hour service we bring lunch and dinner and if it’s not then definitely lunch. People can donate online at stuffthefront.eatsbc.com all donations go directly back to providing those meals. Our first week we made enough to provide lunch and dinner to the ER staff at Bronson Battle Creek. They were very appreciative and we had fun doing it! Also, we will only be buying meals from our EatsBC family of restaurants so the donations help them out as well. This is not just a Christmas thing we plan on doing this for as long as we have funding for it and the frontline workers are out here working hard for us. We do our deliveries on Wednesday and we announce the recipient and the restaurant on the Thursday before. We will strive to always do live Facebook videos to share with everyone where their money went.

The "Stuff The Front Campaign" is already in high gear feeding our frontline employees locally made food from area restaurants. All of this good work comes from donations from the greater Battle Creek area. A goal of $1,000 was set to continue feeding our heroes on the frontlines during the Christmas holiday. That goal has not only been met but exceeded with a total of $1,300.

Twin brothers Michael and Steven Pignataro, owners of 'corePHP', also happen to be retired illusionist. A week ago the brothers made a promise that if Stuff The Front could raise $1,000 in a week, they would briefly come out of retirement to perform illusions LIVE in the parking lot of the next Stuff The Front delivery.

If you would like to contribute to this worthwhile cause click here. Every penny donated goes directly to feeding local frontline workers with food from local restaurants.