Northeast grocer Stop & Shop is providing free, fresh meals to staff at mass-vaccination sites in the markets it serves, including vaccination hubs at Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts and the Meadowlands sports complex in New Jersey.
Stop & Shop, a division of Ahold Delhaize USA, operates more than 400 stores throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.
The donations, which will include hundreds of sandwiches and salads weekly, began last week and will continue into the spring as efforts to administer the COVID-19 vaccinations across the region continue to ramp up.
“When the pandemic first hit, Stop & Shop stepped up to donate 5,000 meals a day to medical first responders at hospitals working around the clock to care for COVID patients,” said Stop & Shop president Gordon Reid. “Now, we’re stepping up to support vaccination site staff as they provide indispensable help in the effort to get as many people in our communities vaccinated as swiftly as possible. We hope this gesture of appreciation keeps them energized and encouraged.”
Stop & Shop has teamed up with CIC Health, a Cambridge, Mass.-based health tech company, which operates both the Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park mass vaccination sites in partnership with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and other collaborators. The donated meals come as both sites are ramping up to providing thousands of shots to residents each day.
Meals were provided by Stop & Shop to healthcare workers Robyn Higgins (left) and Alyssa Mucci at vaccination hub Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. (Stop & Shop)
“We are so grateful for our frontline staff at both Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park,” said CIC Health co-founder and CEO Tim Rowe. “These mass-vaccination sites are a critical component of the state’s vaccine distribution plan and, quite simply, would not be possible without these individuals and their hard work. Stop & Shop’s generous meal donations serve as not only a thank-you to these workers, but also as a means to ensure they are taken care of while they are taking care of others.”
Additional donations are also underway at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center mega-site in the City of Boston, the Meadowlands Racing & Entertainment Complex in New Jersey and at Post University in Waterbury, Conn., which will be administering up to 2,000 vaccines per day.
Stop & Shop began feeding frontline medical workers back in April 2020, providing 5,000 meals a day to five hospitals in areas across the Northeast hardest hit by COVID-19. Stop & Shop delivered free bags of groceries to nurses and others caring for COVID-19 patients right to the hospital.
The retailer also continues to feed frontline hospital workers who are now simultaneously caring for COVID patients while also working to administer vaccines. Stop & Shop is providing hundreds of snacks and beverages to two Long Island Hospitals in New York — Mt. Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside and Long Island Community Hospital in Patchogue. Stop & Shop will also provide Mt. Sinai South Nassau with 1,250 lunches – a donation led by its local Oceanside store in celebration of the store’s recent remodel and commitment to the community.
