Tag: humanitarian aid

The action “Meal for a Doctor” (#MealForADoctor) was organised on the initiative of Patryk Wachowiec, legal analyst of the FOR (Civil Development Forum) Foundation and Marcin Mycielski, Member of the Board of Directors of the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) on 15 March 2020, in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic that put, among others, the Polish health service in an unprecedented situation. The so-called lockdown introduced in Poland on the night of 13/14 March 2020 forced the immediate closure of restaurants, which from then on could only operate by delivering ordered meals. In these circumstances, the idea of supporting doctors, nurses, paramedics and all other healthcare professionals by providing them with free meals at the workplace was born. A secondary, yet important intention of the originators was the desire to help the small catering industry survive the crisis.

Today, Rafał Matouszek, Logistics Coordinator at the Open Dialogue Foundation, visited Silesia – his home region. During the special mission, Rafał met with the management of City Hospital No. 4 in Gliwice in order to sign a donation agreement for the amount of over 58,000 zlotys that remained after settlements with restaurants as part of the #PosiłekDlaLekarza (eng. MealForADoctor) campaign. The campaign was carried out together with the FOR (Civil Development Forum) Foundation and the Niskie Składki (Low Contributions) and Spontaniczny Sztab Obywatelski (Spontaneous Civic Staff) associations.

The two biggest campaigns providing meals free-of-charge to health service workers fighting the coronavirus epidemic – our #MealForDoctor and #SustenanceCalling initiatives – are joining forces!

As part of the #PosiłekDlaLekarza (Eng. #MealForADoctor) campaign, we are raising funds to deliver meals to healthcare workers. However, we are only one of the many support initiatives that emerged spontaneously a month ago in Poland, after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe and in response to the associated restrictions.

The #MealForADoctor campaign has succeeded beyond our expectations. A spontaneous idea two weeks ago has gained unexpected popularity and resulted in over 500 catering establishments from all over Poland volunteering to participate. We also almost immediately reached several hundred thousand zlotys in donations and have so far raised almost 600,000 zlotys. As a result, meals have been delivered to over a hundred hospitals across the country. These are huge numbers! Your solidarity is fantastic, but it also raises some organisational challenges.

We encourage you to read the detailed infographic summarising our activities from the very beginning of the action until 1 April.

The #MealForDoctor campaign is proving the great power that lies in spontaneous initiatives and the generosity of the Polish people. Even in our most optimistic scenarios, we did not expect that, in less than a week, we would collect more than PLN 500,000 and provide support to almost 500 restaurants – and, as a consequence, the same help to medical doctors themselves. Your participation in the campaign and the trust you have placed in our team – which gave you no guarantees that the initiative would succeed – are extremely encouraging.