The Pasadena Hot Meal Program will provide takeout and hot meals from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Jackie Robinson Center, 1020 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena.
Although a city order mandates that all local residents stay in their homes as much as possible and restaurants close for sit down service, the order does allow take out operations and residents are allowed to leave their home for food.
Program founder and former restaurateur Robin Salzer said proper social distancing will be maintained.
According to a statement by Salzer, he is partnering with Cameron’s Seafood, Restaurant Depot and Robin’s Wood Fire BBQ Catering Company to provide the food.
According to Salzer, demand has greatly increased since the lockdown.
“Everyone who comes to the JRC will get a hot meal,” he said. “The pain of adjusting to this new way of life, even if temporary, is a lot harder if you’re hungry,” Salzer told Pasadena Now on Tuesday. “Our collaboration of a couple of small businesses working with the City of Pasadena to feed our most vulnerable during this extremely vulnerable time is timely, necessary and is needed now more than any other time. If you are in line, you will get a meal.”
The Hot Meal Program has provided free hot meals for low-income and homeless residents since 2010. In 2016, organizers celebrated serving 110,000 hot meals.
The Hot Meal Program evolved from collaboration between Robin and another Pasadena businessman, Walter Jackson, who spent years visiting strangers’ homes as a locksmith and a volunteer delivering meals to the homebound.
Salzer was inspired to see this project through after visiting homes of residents when campaigning during his unsuccessful bid to become a District 1 City Councilmember. During that time, residents would invite Salzer into their homes to talk, usually in the kitchen, and in offering him something to drink Robin observed that refrigerators of some of the residents were poorly stocked.