Cranston eatery aiming to 'Feed the Front Lines' during crisis

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While plenty of eateries across the state grapple with economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, one local restaurant is among those doing a little extra to help people on the front lines.

The Facebook page for Lou Umberto’s Italian Kitchen in Cranston is full of images from hospitals and fire and police departments across the state. Nurses, doctors and firefighters among others pictured with wide smiles – even if some are hidden under masks – accepting various culinary donations from Umberto.

April 27 marked the 20th delivery for the Feed the Front Lines initiative, which included a stop at the Johnston Police Department to drop off enough veal, chicken marsala, pizza chips and more to feed 70 officers. Next was a trip to Woman & Infants Hospital to deliver pizza and calzones for more than 100 people.

It’s all in a day’s work for Umberto and his fiancée, Jacquelyn DiMuccio.

“Basically, when we made our initial delivery it was from the restaurant that we donated,” Umberto said during a joint phone interview with DiMuccio. “It was out of the restaurant’s pocket. We had other customers that contacted us and kind of wanted to help out after we put it on social media. Once other customers started to show interest in participating in what we are doing, we started the fund and people started donating and it’s basically the people’s donations that are doing it. We’re just the middleman, so it all works out.”

DiMuccio, who works as a physician’s assistant, has served as the driver for the care packages.

“Lou being a small business owner we tried to think of a way to help those that are on the front lines,” DiMuccio said. “The best way that we thought of was to deliver them food. So we’ve been cooking all the food, and I’ve been making all the deliveries.”

Umberto established a Fundly page to track donations, setting the initial goal at $5,000. Once that mark was shattered, he upped it to $7,000. The page now has more than $10,000 in funds raised from 170 donors. Comments have poured in on the page from contributors expressing their pride and happiness in the effort.

DiMuccio said some workers have been paying it forward, too, in order to make more donations possible.

“Then we had different people that we were donating to, they would just pitch back in, whoever was getting the food – even though they’re the ones doing all the work, and they still wanted to contribute to other people,” Umberto said. “Not just them getting everything, they’re contributing money back to the cause, which is not necessary. They’re doing things above and beyond. It’s just unbelievable.”

Lou Umberto’s Italian Kitchen is not a full-service restaurant, operating more like a quick-service counter. Luckily for Umberto, that means his daily routine wasn’t altered too much when Gov. Gina Raimondo restricted food service to takeout and drive-thru only.

The storefront – which is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday – has been steadily busy.

“Our days didn't change too much,” Umberto said. “Basically we go through our normal routine and then every day we deliver maybe three or four deliveries to different frontline workers and that’s just thrown into our day. It’s been kind of easy for us to contribute when it comes to the food. It’s been good.”

Front line workers are very gracious for the support, too. DiMuccio said when she reached out to Miriam Hospital’s ICU, they said they wanted to cry because of the gesture. They were one of the kitchen’s first deliveries.

“They were so thankful,” DiMuccio said. “They’re all going through such a rough time right now at work, so they’re really very happy when we are delivering.”

“It’s the whole point of why we’re doing all this and why our customers wanted to contribute to this cause because they’re having such a hard time with their day-to-day lives and we bring the food and they’re just ecstatic about it,” Umberto said. “It gives them a little bit of a break from the stuff they already have to deal with every single second, and it makes our customers and other people feel like they’re contributing to something that is inevitable and hard to deal with.”

Umberto said they plan on wrapping up the initiative in the next month or so, and the Fundly page has a ticker counting down 33 days left to donate as of April 29. However, Umberto did note that timeline is contingent “on how the cases go.”

“If they continue to rise, we’ll really try to push,” Umberto said. “We’ve got to do a little tally, but we’ve probably fed more than 3,000 or 4,000 people. We’re going to try to keep moving it forward. If the coronavirus slows down, hopefully, we can stop doing the deliveries, but if not we’ll just keep going.”

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