Our Perspective
The New Reality
of Reopening
Retail Stores
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
COURIER L 6 IFE, MAY 29 -JUNE 4, 2020
Caring for Bklyn
Cobble Hillers connect restaurants
with hungry hospital workers
Teachers Michele Levin and Stephanie Schragger launched “Brooklyn Cares” to help struggling
restaurants by placing bulk orders of food and delivering them to front line workers.
Brooklyn Cares
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
Two kind-hearted Cobble Hill
teachers have raised over $18,000 for a
philanthropic effort to feed front line
workers with meals cooked by local
restaurants struggling during the coronavirus
pandemic.
“We were sharing our frustrations
about not being able to do anything
in this diffi cult time, and we started
brainstorming about ways that we
could help,” said Michele Levin. “We
found that one thing we could do would
be to connect people who wanted to
provide meals, and restaurants that
wanted to make them, with hospitals
that were still in need for food for their
staff.”
Levin, along with her Saint Ann’s
School colleague Stephanie Schragger,
launched “Brooklyn Cares” in early May
— using donations solicited on their Go-
FundMe page to order meals from local
eateries and deliver them to the hungry
staff at local medical facilities.
“We’re teachers, we’re not marketing
professionals. We’ve never made a Go-
FundMe,” said Levin. “But we started
it, and then started emailing it around
to people.”
Soon enough, donations from charitable
New Yorkers started rolling in as
word of their effort spread.
“People have been really great about
sharing it with their friends and family,”
said Schragger. “It’s really been a
grassroots effort.”
“We set our goal at $5,000, but we kept
moving it up because people just kept donating,”
Levin added.
Since they began less than a month
ago, the duo — who advertise their progress
on their Instagram page @BrooklynCares
— has collected over 100 individual
donations, and delivered more
than 1,000 meals from seven different
restaurants.
“It’s really been a collaborative community
effort,” said Levin.
The effort hits particularly close to
home for the group’s organizers, both of
whom have connections to the healthcare
industry — Levin having previously
worked as a pediatrician, and
Schragger being married to a hospital
employee.
“These healthcare workers are going
through so much and putting so much
work in, with all this grit. So, it’s just
lovely to get to see them, and hand them
a healthy meal,” said Levin.
On the fl ip side, the ability to help
restaurants that have been forced to
shutter dine-in options and pivot completely
to take-out and delivery has been
a heart-warming charitable exercise
The pair has used the donations to
order anywhere from 40 to 150 meals at
local restaurants like La Vara in Cobble
Hill and Bar Toto in Park Slope — which
have been grateful for the chance to support
their workers with a living wage,
said Schragger.
“The thing they’ve been most happy
about is paying their staff. That’s what
they keep telling us,” she said. “Just
paying the staff money to produce food,
which is what they love to do. That’s
been such a wonderful part of this project.”
The duo, who adorn the freshly
cooked meals with the “Brooklyn Cares”
rainbow logo designed by Levin’s fi veyear
old daughter Amelie, often makes
the deliveries themselves — which is no
small feat for the full-time teachers.
“We do both have full time jobs, and
we each have two kids under the age
of nine — and they need some supervision,”
said Schragger. “We end up working
whenever we can.”
Despite the added work hours, however,
the pair says the effort has been
worth the trouble.
“It’s been really special,” said Levin.
Donations to “Brooklyn Cares” can be
made at www.gofundme.com/f/brooklyncares
As the Empire State takes its first tentative
steps toward reopening the economy,
nothing is more important than ensuring
we do it the right way. Part of this process will be
the reopening of retail stores, most of which have been shuttered since
March. And the single most important condition of reopening retail is
ensuring the safety of employees and customers.
Our union knows all too well that this is a matter of life or death.
Across the country, the RWDSU has lost dozens of members to the
Coronavirus scourge, and countless RWDSU families know the anguish
of losing loved ones to the COVID-19 disease. Tens of thousands of
RWDSU members will be putting their lives on the line when the
economy and retail stores further reopen, along with countless other
working Americans. With thousands of RWDSU members employed at
retail chains including Macy’s, Zara, Bloomingdales, and H&M, we
couldn’t be more concerned. We only have one chance to get this right;
getting it wrong – with potentially fatal consequences to our families and
communities – cannot be an option.
It all starts with wearing masks, which is probably the most important
thing we can do to protect people along with social distancing. All
employees, management, and customers should be provided masks as
they enter the store and they must be required to use them when they are
in the store. Consistent mask usage helps prevent transmission of the
virus, and it is a crucial component of any responsible reopening plan.
Employers need to commit to enforcing social distancing between
employees, and employees and customers. Plexiglass partitions need
to be constructed at all registers, and temperature testing needs to be
provided to all employees at the employee entrance when they begin
their shifts to prevent sick workers from entering the facility.
Employees need to be given more breaks so they can wash their
hands, and they need to be provided with sanitizer and gloves.
Employers also must make an unprecedented commitment to cleaning
and disinfecting their stores, cleaning all break rooms and restrooms on a
regular basis through-out the day. All employee areas need to be properly
supplied with paper towels and hand sanitizer. The same type of protocol
needs to be used for any equipment employees use, including registers.
And, all interactions between customers and employees need to be adjusted
to ensure safety. Gone are the days when employees would pass a
customer a phone to talk to credit card employees.
Stores need to be deep cleaned and disinfected at the end of the day,
and air circulation or air conditioning systems need to have proper filters
sufficient to clean the air from contaminates. Filters must be cleaned
every day.
We all want to see New York’s economy moving again, and we
want RWDSU members to be able to return to their jobs safely. This
means a real commitment from employers to doing this the right way.
We’ve made some progress in New York in the fight against COVID-19;
it’s proof that a scientific, health-driven approach can
work during these uncertain times. If we are going
to open our stores, we need to continue to
embrace this approach, and keep workers and
customers safe, protected, and secure.
www.rwdsu.org
/brooklyn-caresAs
/brooklyn-caresAs
/brooklyn-caresAs
/brooklyn-caresAs
/www.rwdsu.org
/www.rwdsu.org