West Caldwell ShopRite Feeds Hospital Workers Amid Pandemic

WEST CALDWELL, NJ — Workers at the ShopRite in West Caldwell have been teaming up with their peers in Parsippany and a North Jersey catering service to make thousands of meals a day for hospital employees.

Sunrise ShopRite, which owns and operates the ShopRite of West Caldwell and ShopRite of Parsippany, has been working with Sterling Affair to package about 17,000 daily meal kits since late March.

As part of the program, the supermarket produces and procures components of the meals, including items such as water, chips and individually wrapped cookies. Sterling Affair then distributes the meal kits to the hospitals’ staff.

More than 50,000 cookies are baked and individually wrapped among the two stores every week, and the company’s chefs work to prepare other meal components as well. In addition, over 350,000 bags of chips and individual waters have been distributed.

To prepare the items for shipping, store associates gather in the café area to assemble tens of thousands of boxes. Hours are spent carefully wrapping each cookie and other store-made items.

By the time the campaign finishes at the end of July, the company expects to have contributed nearly 950,000 meals to medical workers at four hospitals: New York Presbyterian, Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York, Milstein Hospital at Columbia University Medical Center and Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

“Our stores are known for their extraordinary catering capabilities, and I am grateful that during this time we’ve been able to leverage our experience and expertise to support the frontline staff of these hospitals,” said Dara Sblendorio, owner of Sunrise ShopRite.

“All of us at Sunrise are proud of this partnership and honored to support these dedicated healthcare professionals as they face each day with bravery and courage,” Sblendorio added.

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