Frontline workers need meals, and Toronto restaurants need support, so why not bring the two together?

That's exactly what Meals TO Heal is doing, by using donations from the local community to buy meals from restaurants and coffee shops which are then delivered to healthcare workers.

They've already secured over 1250 meals for frontline workers, have raised over $18,000 and have partnered with local restaurants Maker, iQ, Parallel and more.

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We are hard at work scheduling deliveries for next week while folks like these two are hard at work saving lives 👏👏. You can support by visiting mealstoheal.ca (link in bio) and dropping a donation. 100% of donations are used to feed the front lines.

A post shared by Meals TO Heal (@meals_to_heal) on Apr 10, 2020 at 8:28am PDT

"We first piloted the initiative using a GoFundMe page that was shared amongst our close friends, families, and co-workers at Konrad Group in downtown Toronto," says Jeff Packer, who started Meals TO Heal with friend and colleague Div Mehra a few weeks ago.

"For the pilot, we partnered with iQ, Mount Sinai Hospital, and UHN Hospitals...Toronto Western, Toronto General, Princess Margaret. The response to the pilot was fantastic, so we buckled down and built our website, mealstoheal.ca, last weekend with the real launch to the public just this past Monday."

"Both Div and Jeff were fans of iQ and thought healthy, nourishing meals were exactly what front line workers could use," says Alan Bekerman, founder and CEO of iQ.

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Last night was special. We fed 100 front line workers at Mt. Sinai w/ another 100 or so meals personally delivered to our iQ team members + their families. Could not have made it happen w/ out the dedication of our staff as well as the incredible work of @meals_to_heal (check them out to see how you can support their great initiative). Proud of everybody involved + excited to see more of this over the weeks to come 💫🥗❤️ ( 📸: c/o @therichardmatchett )

A post shared by iQ™ (@iqfoodco) on Apr 4, 2020 at 10:35am PDT

"Their goal was to raise funds from the community to help pay for the meals ... acting as a conduit between ourselves and the hospitals for delivery to frontline workers. We did our first drop, a 100 meal order to front line workers at Mount Sinai, in early April, with an additional 90 iQ digital gift cards distributed as well."

iQ team members have limited interaction with outside customers and wear masks, and meals are sealed with labels to guarantee they haven't been tampered with between the restaurant and the hospital.

"We will look to continue to grow our restaurant and hospital partners assuming donations continue to grow as well," says Packer. "We are also looking into ways that we can begin to support other groups impacted by COVID-19."

You can donate to Meals TO Heal through their website, which offers convenient $20, $30, $50 and $100 suggested denominations, or you can enter your own custom amount, no matter how big or small.