Amy's Drive Thru offers free meals to fire evacuees, responders

Amy’s Kitchen is providing free meals at its Rohnert Park drive thru for victims and first responders of the Sonoma County fires, and is distributing meals for firefighters, as well as to evacuation centers.

Starting on Monday, Oct. 9, Amy’s Drive Thru started offering free meals to evacuees and first responders. The company also donated all the money from paid meals on Monday and Tuesday to rescue efforts, said Paul Schiefer, manager of the drive thru operations.

The free offer continued on Wednesday with 20 percent of proceeds donated. There is no special end date to the effort so far, Schiefer said.

The effort began when evacuees were found sleeping in the drive thru’s parking lot Monday morning.

“The company as a whole has many employees who lost their homes, so we decided we had to get food out,” Schiefer said.

Amy’s, the organic frozen food giant, is also cooking and delivering hundreds of soups, burritos, and salads to fire fighters and evacuation centers including Elsie Allen, Cook Middle School and the Salvation Army.

The company is also delivering a truckload of soup to the Santa Rosa distribution center of the Salvation Army for the Tubbs fire victims, as well as a truckload of soup to their Sacramento distribution center for the other Northern California fires.

Amy’s Drive Thru is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, and is making a 100 percent match on any cash donations.

Amy’s Santa Rosa manufacturing plant was closed earlier this week, but opened on a limited schedule Wednesday, Oct. 12.

Cynthia Sweeney covers health care, hospitality, residential real estate, education, employment and business insurance. Reach her at Cynthia.Sweeney@busjrnl.com or call 707-521-4259.