Journalist
Toronto Sun
https://apple.news/AOBHMvDQbTL23pPX8vfQs2A
Simone Paget in Chowhound:
From celebrities and chefs to local food banks and grassroots organizations, people everywhere have been pitching in to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on our communities. Here’s how Global Cafe in Memphis is helping healthcare workers in a city that’s both food-insecure and extremely charitable.
Memphis has been a long-time hub for the civil rights movement and more recently, food activism. Global Cafe is no exception.
Located in Crosstown Concourse—a former Sears distribution building that has been transformed into a 1,200,000 square foot mixed use space—the international food hall hosts three immigrant/refugee food entrepreneurs cooking and selling an eclectic mix of affordably priced, authentic dishes from their home countries, which currently includes a delicious mix of Syrian, Sudanese and Venezuelan cuisine. Think: delectable arepas, amazingly tender shawarma, and freshly made baba ganoush.
Since the COVID-19 crisis, the Global Cafe team has been putting their culinary ingenuity to work feeding overtaxed medical professionals and people economically impacted by the virus. For a small donation, they’ll buy food, cook it, and deliver it to people in need.
So far, they’ve cooked and delivered hundreds of meals to the night ER shift at LeBohneur Germantown, the physicians at LeBonheur, the respiratory ICU unit at Baptist East, as well as First Congo Food Justice Ministry in Midtown and the staff of Church Health.
Giving back to the community is part of Global Cafe’s life blood, explains owner and CEO, Sabine Langer.
“Post-election, the climate was very negative towards immigrants and refugees. As an immigrant, I wanted to find a way to make a difference in the lives of immigrants and refugees. I wasn’t sure exactly how but after lots of research, it became apparent that I could help some of the women I had met that were cooking on the side trying to make an additional income to support their families,” she says.
By empowering immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs to set up food businesses with zero start-up cost, Langer says that the food hall has been a wonderful catalyst for many of the team members.
“One of our chefs was able to pay off her house, another one was able to purchase a house, and our trusted dishwasher recently bought a car. It’s fantastic to see this and it warms my heart to know that we are true to our mission and really making a difference in everyone’s lives,” she says.
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Read the rest of Simone’s article, along with some great food pictures, at the link.
Immigrants have long been a powerful force in our culinary arts and food supply. That has become even more obvious during this crisis.
When the pandemic finally gets under control, will we recognize these essential contributions by improving wages, working conditions, and providing a social safety net for these essential workers? Or, will we go back to undervaluing and disrespecting their contributions? Will we emerge as a more equitable, just, and caring society? Or, as happened after the last recession, will we allow the privileged and powerful to increase their authority and line their pockets at the expense of the vast majority of Americans? The lack of an adequate “safety net” has become obvious; but will we finally do what’s necessary to promote the common good rather than living from “crisis to crisis?”
Already, far-right White Nationalist pols like Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions are cynically using the pandemic as an excuse for pushing “immigration moratoriums” and other nativist schemes. Don’t let them get away with it! Immigrants aren’t “taking our jobs;” they’re “saving our lives,” often at the risk of their own!
PWS
04-20-18