Campbell with supplies. Photo via GoFundMe.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
APRIL 10, 2020 | A Collins Hill student has stepped forward during the global pandemic to provide meals for Northside Gwinnett Medical Center. She is Christa Campbell, who didn’t want to sit at home and not help people during her enforced break from school.
Brack, dressed for Covid-19
She has partnered with The Meal Bridge to provide the meals, working through local restaurants. After three days, about 100 meals a day are being sent to the hospital by local restaurants through this program. In addition, Christa provide at least 35 meals a day if not enough people fund the meals through local restaurants. On one day, the restaurant Universal Joint sent 200 meals to the hospital funded by Christa’s site.
There are several ways to participate in The Meal Bridge program.
People can go to this GoFundMe site to donate to help purchase snacks, drinks and meals for doctors and nurses at Northside Gwinnett Medical Center. They may donate any amount. By Thursday, 25 people had helped fund the GoFundMe site.
Or donors may purchase meals through participating local restaurants and directly order meals for the hospital, at best a day or two before delivery. Local restaurants currently participating include:
- Universal Joint–770-299-1898;
- Blue Rooster–770-995-0065;
- Cosmo’s–770-338-9274;
- Feast 26– 770-675-3572;
- Smokin Gold BBQ– 770-466-3227;
- Jason’s Deli–770-962-9090; and
- Chili’s–770-513-0970.
Campbell
Many of the meals are bag lunches of a sandwich, cookie, fruit cups and chips, while often the donors pick meals from the restaurant menus to fund.
What got Christa’s attention was finding out about a site developed by Druid Hills High’s Grey Cohben, who started The Meal Bridge. Christa says: “I reached out to her, and she helped us get our Gwinnett site going.” Helping her are her fellow students of the Gwinnett Student Leadership Team. They are two other Collins Hill students, Izzie Lee and Naathan Eyasu, plus Shivani Desai of Peachtree Ridge High.
“Gray has inspired me, and helps keep me and our team going,” Christa says. “We also have had a lot of support from our Collins Hill Principal Kerensa Wing, who is the national principal of the year, and from Ms. Nancy Ward, director of the Gwinnett Student Leadership Team. These people have worked really hard to help us.”
Christa, who is a junior and 16 years old, was born at Gwinnett Medical Center. Her parents are Hope and Tyler Campbell, both teachers, Hope at the online school, and her father teaches math at Brookwood High.
By the fourth day, Christa had decided to add another site to send the meals, as medical personnel at the Good Samaritan Medical Clinic are to start getting the meals.
Originally Christa wanted to set an achievable goal with the GoFundMe site, and in three days she had achieved the goal of $1,000. “But the need continues, and we hope to get even more in donations to make sure we can continue this until our area returns to normal.”
On another note: Opening a mailed-in envelope, we were surprised to find two medical masks earlier this week, as you see here. Special thanks to Lynn Jacques of the Philadelphia Winn chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, for making and sending the masks.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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