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'Friends of Frontliners' provides meals to healthcare workers in the Treasure Valley

"Many of us, we feel isolated and in our homes and like we don't know how to help and I think it's important to try and do something."

BOISE, Idaho — It seems just about everywhere you turn, you see or hear about the need in our community: lost jobs, mounting debts, looming evictions, social isolation.

With those crises deepening every day, it may seem overwhelming to know how to help. But for two Treasure Valley women, their small idea to help others turned into a massive effort that has received support from one major company.

"I just felt like I had to do something," Cheryl Mills said. "This is just a small thing. And many of us, we feel isolated and in our homes and like we don't know how to help and I think it's important to try and do something."

Mills started a GoFundMe page, "Friends of Frontliners," asking for donations to help deliver food to those risking their lives for us.  

As a nurse practitioner, Mills knows what it means to have love and support from the community.

"So I just started a GoFundMe and many of the people who are supporting it are people like myself who have relationships with health care but aren't providing direct patient care or who just want to provide meals and love for people who are there and going to work every day," Mills said.

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Open Table Boise, a local catering company, will be working to fulfill Mills' orders. The company's owner, April Hale, said she's gotten other orders from total strangers who just want to help. One of those orders was 30 box lunches that were meant to be delivered to nurses at St. Luke's drive-thru testing sites.

"It's been so rewarding," Hale said. "When all this first started, it was really upsetting. But instead of focusing on that, I think for all of us, it's been so cool to see kids buying meals for their parents, just all of this, people donating to the front line workers, and anonymously, it's just really really cool."

Hale said Chobani got wind of their mission and decided to help. They have donated yogurt and even included hand-written notes to go inside each lunch, thanking healthcare workers for their sacrifices.

Open Table Boise has also gotten orders to hand out to firefighters, linemen, and funeral homes.

"We just have this unique little window where we are able to witness all of these acts of kindness, people buying meals for families that maybe they think don't have enough food and hey, just drop it off on their doorstep and you don't need to say who it's from," Hale said. "There's just a lot of cool stuff going on behind the scenes."

If you're interested in helping, check out the Friends of Frontliners' GoFundMe link.

"Everybody has their own way of giving back," Mills added. "And so if people can just think of one little thing they can do to maybe put a smile on somebody's face."

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