Sanford Health Gives Away 250 Meals To First Responders

Earlier this week the Sanford Center had a grand opening planned for their new peak center…but given the state of everything after the storm, it didn’t feel like the right time to celebrate. So instead, Sanford put those resources back into the community.

A food truck from Bagley had previously been hired to make 250 meals for the ceremony…but instead of going to grand opening guests, the food all went to first responders. Sanford volunteers and the food truck set up shop for the evening by the Law Enforcement Center in Bemidji and started giving away the meals.

“They’re just grateful.” said Sanford Bemidji President/CEO Karla Eischend, “It’s just a good time to sort of connect. Like I was on the phone with a lot of people the last few days or just in person thank them and and they feel the same way for us. We did a lot of back and forth, so we decided to really recognize some of those kind of front line workers. We invited all kinds of people, like people from the electric company, law enforcement, EMTs, county, city employees, just really those people that were out there fixing stuff for all of us.”

The home-cooked barbecue dinners were provided to law enforcement and city workers at no cost.