A Vermont Food Server Reaches Out and Finds Help During Covid-19

When restaurants closed down due to the coronavirus, Megan and her partner found themselves unemployed and wondering how they would make ends meet. But help was there, because of donors like you.

Megan and her partner are food servers at restaurants in Burlington, VT. But since these restaurants closed due to the coronavirus, they are both now unemployed.

Before the restaurant was closed, Megan was afraid for her health. “I was really concerned about coming in,” she said. “[The last night I worked] I just washed my hands like 50 times during the shift.” Then everything changed before her next shift, and she has been unemployed since.

Megan and her partner were planning to move to Michigan in mid-April, but they postponed those plans. Since they had already arranged to move out of their apartment, they are scrambling to find housing, which has been extremely challenging these days.

“We just don’t know how long this is going to last. All we know is that it is going to get worse.”

While struggling through a stressful housing situation and facing the realities of unemployment, Megan and her partner have been worried about how to keep food on the table.

To support their former employees, the restaurant where Megan worked gave their staff the food they had left in their inventory. “We went in last week to get some free eggs and stuff like that.” But that won’t last and Megan needs a longer term solution to keep food on the table during this crisis.

“We went to the store a couple of weeks ago with the intention of not going back for as long as we could possible hold out. So just buying in bulk, and buying cheap food—dried beans, potatoes, pasta—things that will last that are as cheap as possible.”

“Because we don’t know when we’ll be able to work again, we’re being really conscientious. Every dollar counts. Anything to kind of make the money that we have now stretch a little further is helpful.”

Thanks to the generous support of donors like you, Megan has help keeping food on the table. She approached the Vermont Foodbank, and we were able to help her apply for 3SquaresVT (also known as food stamps), a program that can help her provide groceries for her family.

“I reached out pretty much as soon as we lost our jobs,” said Megan. “It’s been really helpful!”

During times like these it is especially critical that we all work together to take care of each other.

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