How Las Vegas Chefs Are Stepping Up To Help The City Heal

Local chefs and restaurants have been providing food to victims of the Las Vegas shooting, as well as the first responders and the hospital staff that’s treating them, in a moving show of gratitude for all of those involved. There’s nothing quite like sharing a meal together, especially when it is to say “we’re here for you.”

Efforts of locals in the culinary industry through social media and organizations such as The First Food Responders made it possible for chefs and restaurants to participate in providing a meal for those who needed it most.

“The outpouring has been instantaneous and intense,” Eric Gladstone, a local publicist who helped coordinate donation efforts, told Today. “Las Vegas has this reputation of a being cold-hearted town—an ‘all-for-me’ town. This shows that’s just not true. It’s a really caring community.”

Through donations of local dining establishments, people in hospitals, waiting to donate at blood banks and others have been able to receive free snacks, pizza and other delicious foods.

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Chefs may not be the ones directly saving lives, but they certainly are using their best skills to make a terrible situation a little more bearable.

“Everyone is just using their strengths; my strengths are I know a lot of these chefs and restaurants and I just started to put it together,” Jason Harris, who organized The First Food Responders program, told NBC. He said the group has been providing about 1,000 free meals a day.

The efforts from restaurants such as Evel Pie, Metro City Pizza, Bouchon Bakery and others aren’t going unnoticed.

“We had nurses break down crying. They had been working 12 hours and hadn’t had anything to eat,” Branden Powers, managing partner of Evel Pie told Today.

“We’re so small in this whole thing—they are the ones are trying to save limbs, eyes, prevent paralysis, and help people who are teetering on life and death,” Powers continued. “Whatever we can do, to make sure they are taken care of—we are going to bring some comfort to them the best we can.”

These food professionals aren’t the only ones working to show the love in Las Veags. Between the many people who stepped up to help complete strangers on the night of the attack, all of the people donating online and those working in Las Vegas to aid the survivors and their families, this really has become a positive example of how people can come together in a time of need.