All Heroes Need Coffee

The problem: Healthcare workers are being asked to work longer hours and therefore have less time to home cook meals to eat at work. The increased personnel in the hospital has caused a strain on available hospital cafeterias and coffee shops. Further, many restaurants are at risk of going out of business because of local government-imposed restrictions (e.g. delivery and take-out only) and customers concerns about safety. Adding onto this, some restaurants have completely closed given the operational costs of keeping them open outweighed the benefits, further limiting food options. 

The project: When we conducted a needs assessment asking residents their non-medical needs, the #1 item requested was coffee. We then created the #allheroesneedcoffee campaign, in which we reached out to a number of local coffee shops to set up a program where their patrons could (1) purchase online gift cards that contribute towards coffee and pastry donations for the hospitals or (2) directly send a carafe and/or pastries to the hospital. Coffee was donated as either to-go carafes or beans, matched to the specifics of the department’s coffee machine. 

Key Stakeholders:

• Medical students are reaching out to local coffee shops that are still in operation and performing deliveries and coordinating deliveries. We suggest e-mailing, calling, and connecting with coffee shops via social media. 
• Hospital Operations Staff are providing headcounts, delivery location(s), and preferred delivery times 
• Coffee Shops are providing brewed coffee or beans, and setting up purchase donation pages on their own websites. We suggest leaving it up to the individual coffee shops whether they’d like to partner with other institutions, so there is no need for med students to collect the donations. 

Campaign materials: Feel free to use the graphics designed by our NYU GSoM team for your own purposes. We simply ask you to attribute the design to us so our graphics team can receive appropriate credit. Download campaign kit here. We recommend these social media hastags: #allheroesneedcoffee #covid19 

Students Participating: Open to all Medical Students and PhD students