EDITOR'S NOTE: During the coronavirus outbreak, the Herald is profiling efforts being made by local businesses to aid customers and to stay viable during this historic disruption to commerce.
As with many businesses the Toasted Frog, a restaurant in downtown Grand Forks, is finding new ways to keep busy while giving back to the community during the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the ways is providing meals to first responders – and customers can help.
When customers call in to place an order for curbside pickup or delivery, they have the option to donate $10 to provide a meal to first responders, including health care workers.
The restaurant started the service last weekend by providing meals to Altru ER staff and the local COVID-19 clinic, said co-owner Shawn Clapp. This week, Thursday and Friday, the restaurant focused on providing meals to the Grand Forks Fire Department.
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“Everything is unique and different right now,” he said. “We’re trying to help out the first responders. They have a tough and dangerous job and so we’re trying to do any part we can.”
Clapp said the community’s response has been overwhelming to the point that his team – about 25 employees before the pandemic but now around 10 – needed time to regroup for the next batch of meals, which he said will likely go to area law enforcement.
“The support that this community has given is absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “I don’t know if it was surprising, but it has been very pleasing. … We’re just doing a little catch-up now because the response was so good.”
Clapp said the restaurant likely won’t do the meal service every day, but he’d like to devote at least a couple of days a week to it going forward.
Whenever the restaurant selects a group to serve that week, the restaurant staff asks customers if they’d like to donate. The restaurant also promotes the service on social media and customers can call in anytime during business hours to donate.
“We keep thinking of who we might be able to help support next,” he said.
If you would like to see your business appear in Retail Reacts, contact Herald business reporter Adam Kurtz at akurtz@gfherald.com . Not all requests will lead to stories. The Herald will choose from among a wide swath of Greater Grand Forks businesses.
