All three of this week’s ‘good people’ have earned thumbs-up for doing something to help feed people.  Let’s take a look …

Meet Doramise Moreau, a woman with a heart of gold.  Doramise is a widow, 60 years of age, who works part-time as a janitor at a technical school in Miami, Florida.  She usually walks to work or takes the bus because she does not own a car.  Doramise doesn’t have much in the way of money, but she still gives more to her community than most people.  What does she do?  She cooks.  Correction … she cooks over a thousand meals every week to feed the hungry in her community.

Every Thursday and Friday, Moreau borrows her church’s truck to buy groceries. Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church pays for the food, relying on donations. Moreau then prepares the meals singlehandedly, while church volunteers serve or deliver them to people in need.  Says Ms. Moreau …

“Americans, Spanish, Haitian, they come here.  Even when I’m closing, they say, ‘Please, can I have some,’ and I give it to them, because if they go home and have nothing it hurts my feelings.”

Don’t you just want to hug this woman?  Despite her limited salary, she also feeds people back home in her little village north of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. She sends food pallets monthly to her sisters and brother, nieces, nephews and neighbors.

Now, I said at the beginning that Doramise doesn’t own a car, but that’s not quite true, for last week Ms. Moreau was surprised with a new Toyota Corolla by community leaders!  Take a look …

In Baltimore, Maryland, there is a restaurant named Ekiben, owned by Steve Chu and friends Ephrem Abebe and Nikhil Yesupriya.  The restaurant is known in the Fells Point neighborhood for its Taiwanese-influenced cuisine in a fast casual environment.  Recently Steve Chu got his opportunity to be a ‘good people’.

A customer of Ekiben reached out to the restaurant after he learned that his mother-in-law’s health had taken a turn for the worse.

He explained …

“My mother-in-law lives in Vermont and would visit my wife and her sister throughout the years. Whenever she was in town, Ekiben’s tempura broccoli was something she always needed to have. She always joked that when she’s on her death bed that if there’s anything in the world, she wants tempura broccoli from Ekiben.”

Turns out his mother-in-law is, in fact, on her death bed now, dying of stage 4 lung cancer, so …

“The drive to Vermont is 6 hours and tempura broccoli obviously will not taste the same after the long ride. I reached out to Ekiben’s owners to see if there was a way for us to either get the recipe or some of the ingredients to bring up and cook it for her.

The response I received is still overwhelming.

Steve Chu replied, ‘Thanks for reaching out. Ephrem and I are more than willing to meet you guys in Vermont and make the food fresh so it will be just like what she remembered.’

I’m still in disbelief that they would go to such lengths.”

Steve and Ephrem did as promised, and refused to accept any money for their gas, lodging, or the food they provided.

Rhonda Lee of Jackson Country, West Virginia, has made a big difference during this pandemic by starting a food pantry in her own basement.

Ms. Lee began in the early days of the pandemic taking money out of her own pay checks to create a food pantry for those in need …

“Some weeks it was 200, some weeks 100.”

When Lee was laid off in June, she continued the pantry going with the money she had saved.  How many people do you know who would do that?  Lee says she has strived to find ways to give back to the community after others helped her when she lost everything in a flash flood in 1995.

“I know what it’s like to get up one day and everything’s gone. They helped me, and I’m in a position, I’m gonna help others.”

Lee says she helps anyone, no matter the circumstances. She even goes the extra mile and drops the boxes of food off herself.

“We don’t tell people ‘no’. We just say ‘how can we help?’, ‘what do you need?'”

There are a few essentials to keep people alive, and no, an i-phone isn’t one of them.  Food, water, shelter … that’s about it.  Today’s good people all went the extra mile, giving of their time and money to make sure people had the first of those essentials and they all deserve a big …