“Tables Without Borders and refugee chef to feed immigrants during COVID-19 pandemic”

via GoFundMe

From an email:

“Tables Without Borders, a non-profit organization founded by Sam Sgori and Sara Abdel-Rahim supporting refugee and asylum-seeking chefs, will launch a new initiative to support DC’s immigrant community during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recently launched GoFundMe page raises money to kickstart a program where refugee chefs cook meals to support clients of Ayuda DC, an organization that works to provide legal, social, and language services to help vulnerable immigrants in the DC metropolitan area. Many of Ayuda’s clients have been deeply impacted by COVID-19, and this recent partnership will work to provide 250 meals, prepared by refugee chefs who are honored to cook for a community that has recently welcomed them.

The first round of meals will be prepared by Chef Bacon Williams, who arrived to the United States 6 months ago from Cote D’Ivoire and spent over 15 years cooking in hotels in the West African nation. Bacon will prepare traditional Ivorian dishes out of the former Whaley’s kitchen, which was recently taken over by Chefs Gerald Addison and Chris Morgan who supported the work of Tables Without Borders last summer. Meals will be prepared on Monday and Tuesday of this week, with deliveries happening on Wednesday and Thursday. This is an internship program where Tables Without Borders will pay the refugee chefs to prepare donated meals, with a goal of making additional donations in the coming weeks with other refugee chefs in their program, including two others from Ethiopia.

As you might recall, Tables Without Borders launched a non-profit dinner series in the summer of 2019 where they partnered five refugee and/or asylum-seeking chefs to cook and serve special collaborative dishes during World Refugee Week, and the restaurants donated proceeds to HIAS, a global leader in refugee resettlement. Sgroi and Abdel-Rahim were recently accepted into the Halcyon Incubator Fellowship to build a long-term plan and program for the initiative.”