WASHINGTON — Thousands of turkey dinners are about to be loaded up and delivered ahead of the holiday, courtesy of D.C. restaurant Medium Rare.
The turkeys are just about ready to come out of the oven to be carved into meals for more than 5,000 seniors.
They’ll be picked up in Design Cuisine Catering in Arlington, and the deliveries are happening all day Tuesday and Wednesday.
Medium Rare, partnering with Feed the Fridge, a charity foundation established by the restaurant's founder, has served more than 100,000 free meals to seniors and those dealing with food insecurity since the start of the pandemic. For Thanksgiving, staff worked with Washington Home to identify seniors in need.
And its founder, Mark Bucher, says Thanksgiving dinner is a hard meal to prepare for just one person, so isolated seniors often go without.
"We realized at the beginning of COVID, the area’s seniors were in trouble," said Bucher. "They don’t have the technology to order any food, often isolated, and hungry. We learned more and more as we went through the past 18 months bringing them food, bringing them meals, that they're stuck. They don’t go out, they don’t get their food at the giveaway sites. They don’t order in the apps or delivery food, they’re home alone, because they’re scared."
More than 250 volunteers will be delivering the turkeys but they need more. You can volunteer to help out at mediumrarerestaurant.com or feedthefridge.org.
"It’s a crazy time, we've just spent the last 20 months in a really hard place as a society," said Bucher. "And you see the news, you read the papers now and people that have means are freaking out because turkeys are expensive or there's scarcity. There are people in our society that live with this every day. This is our wake up call."
Sign up for the Get Up DC newsletter: Your forecast. Your commute. Your news.
Sign up for the Capitol Breach email newsletter, delivering the latest breaking news and a roundup of the investigation into the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021.