Ottawa, Ontario, April 22, 2020: The Love Local Delivery (LLD) team is stepping up once more to help the community get through these extraordinary times. When you buy a Stay the Fork Home T-shirt, you’re supporting multiple small businesses and charities.
Sales of locally designed and printed Stay The Fork Home T-shirts support local restaurants and two important local charities that have strong ties to Ottawa eateries through their annual multi-chef fundraising events. Shepherds of Good Hope (Taste for Hope) and Carefor Health & Community Services (Feast of Fields), each in their own way, support Ottawa’s most vulnerable population and will share 50% of T-shirt sales proceeds. The other 50% will be directly supporting local restaurants.
*BACKSTORY on the T-Shirt
The T-shirt idea occurred to Melissa Shabinsky while part of her family was self-isolating in Florida. Her own daughter had just tested positive for COVID-19 and her NYC-based son showed a similar initiative that was supporting some of his favourite neighbourhood restaurants. Melissa thought, “Why don’t we do something similar in Ottawa?” and reached out to the Love Local Delivery team to collaborate on a design with daughter Alexa.
“Ola is proud to be part of this initiative that is growing by the day. It’s a win-win for everyone. We are helping those in need, while we stay strong in order to be sustainable in this uncertain time, plus we get to wear a “stay the fork home T-shirt! How cool is that??” says Chef Donna Chevrier, owner of Ola Cocina, who has been participating since the service rolled out at the end of March.
The Love Local Delivery team of Karen Wood, LLD co-founder, and Lissa Constantine, BirdDog Design Studio, together with Melissa Shabinsky* and daughter Alexa collaborated on the design. Luckily, Festival Promotions and Municipal Apparel jumped on board to assist with sales and print the shirts at a reasonable cost.
Currently, consumers contact restaurants directly to place their food delivery orders. Within weeks LLD will launch its own hyper-local marketplace app to make supporting local restaurants and food businesses a seamless experience for all. LLD aims to become a local restaurant coalition providing the most cost-effective and sustainable delivery solution for Ottawa’s independent restaurants and food businesses.
“Having the ability to provide delivery while being sustainable for all parties involved, restaurants, drivers, clients and support services, without the enormous price tag the big apps take- is the most important thing right now,” remarks Harriet Clunie, Executive Chef at Das Lokal, and one of the founding members of LLD. “We are all learning to adapt and pivot to our new reality and being able to offer a safe, contactless delivery is going to be vital for restaurants for the foreseeable future, so doing it with the whole ecosystem and safety in mind is why we started LLD.”
*In addition to sales via Instagram, Facebook and Municipal-apparel.com, T-shirts will be available from participating restaurants and eventually will be added to restaurant takeout and delivery menus so customers can order them directly from the app.
Important links to connect with Love Local Delivery:
Contact each restaurant directly to order and schedule your delivery
Website: lovelocaldelivery.com or lovelocaldelivery.ca
Facebook: @Love Local Delivery (https://www.facebook.com/LocalLoveDelivery)
Instagram: @lovelocaldelivery @staytheforkhome
Local and independently-run restaurants that want to participate in Love Local Delivery, can fill out the form at lovelocaldelivery.com
