HOUSTON – After seeing the effects of COVID-19 in the healthcare and restaurant community, Houston Astros pitcher Joe Smith and his wife, sports reporter Allie Laforce, decided to do something.
The couple is committed to keep kitchens open, workers employed, and our heroes fed through their partnership with Project FRONTLINE.
“The healthcare workers, nurses, doctors and anybody else that works in a hospital, are working long hours, sacrificing everything, the health of their families, just to send them meals just to say thank you, it’s kind of how it started,” said Smith, who explained how this initiative serves another purpose.
“It also gives us a way to help the restaurants get some revenue through there, so they can hopefully pay some employees and their bills, and kind of keep their doors open through these tough times,” said Smith, who’s been playing with the Astros since 2018.
In the Houston area, the donations have allowed meal deliveries to Texas Children Hospital, Memorial Hermann and Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.
But now through Project FRONTLINE, around 9,000 meals and deliveries are scheduled every day for the rest of this month to hospitals around the country.
As of today, Project FRONTLINE has raised $119,850 of their $200,000 goal, and not only athletes are helping the cause, but everyone can help by donating any amount you can.
“If you’re someone that’s able to fund 300, 500, 1000 meals and there’s a hospital that means to you locally, treated a son or daughter of yours or gave you a lifesaving surgery, just give us a message on social media and let us know that if you make a donation you want it to go to a specific Houston hospital and we can try to make that happen for you as well,” said LaForce, a sideline reporter for the NBA on TNT.
To donate to Project FRONTLINE, click here.
To see LaForce and Smith’s complete interview, watch the video above.