SALEM — Sailing Heals has always focused on saying, “Thanks,” to healthcare workers. Normally, that means taking them out for a therapeutic day on the water, but now it means getting them well-deserved meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Salem-based nonprofit, Sailing Heals, was launched in 2011 by sisters Trisha Gallagher Boisvert and Michele Gallagher Glesinger after both of their parents battled cancer. Since that time, the organization has hosted thousands of healthcare workers and cancer patients on free sailing trips from more than 20 ports across the U.S. But with “social distancing” preventing Sailing Heals from carrying out its usual duties, the group has shifted its mission to providing free meals to healthcare workers.
Since starting the Sailing Heals Meals program a month ago, more than 1,000 meals have been delivered to healthcare workers at North Shore Medical Center’s Salem Hospital, Lynn Community Health Center, and Mass General Hospital’s Chelsea Healthcare Center.
“At Sailing Heals, we are of course about the patients, but we are also about the caregivers,” Boisvert said after delivering a fresh batch of meals to the evening-shift workers at Lynn Community Health Center. “Often, they get overlooked.”
Boisvert is not only the organization’s founder, but also its executive director. Rather than making calls from the office, she delivers the meals to healthcare workers herself. As someone who’s dealt with family members having serious medical issues, Boisvert said it means so much to deliver the meals and say, “Thank you,” in person.
“For me, that’s the fun of it,” Boisvert said. “We have to be in lockdown mode of course, and can’t go and shake hands during drop-offs, but it’s still that eye-to-eye contact that is so important.”
Boisvert, as well as two part-time workers and a bevy of volunteers, have been able to make the Sailing Heals Meals program a reality with a grant from the Martin Richard Foundation and support from Bill Richard, the father of eight-year-old Martin Richard, that organization’s namesake, who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
The meals are ordered from a variety of Boston-area businesses, and then delivered during evening shifts at 5:30 p.m., late-night shifts at 11:30 p.m., or in the morning at 7:30 a.m.
Boisvert said she wants to make sure as many healthcare workers receive the meals as possible. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sailing Heals can’t directly help those with cancer or otherwise compromised immune systems, but they can help indirectly by providing meals to the medical professionals providing care, Boisvert said.
“We can’t get into every cancer patient’s home and help them, but we can still help the caregivers at the hospital,” Boisvert said.
Boisvert said each individual delivery makes a difference for both the workers receiving the meals, and the local business that is paid to prepare them. In one instance, 65 employees at Lynn Community Health Center were treated to meals prepared by Brothers Taverna restaurant in Salem, which, like other restaurants, has had to close its doors to diners during the pandemic.
Sailing Heals sailing programs have been postponed through at least June 30. The organization offers sails primarily through “word-of-mouth” and relationships with patients and healthcare providers. For more information on Sailing Heals, visit www.sailingheals.org.