ResQ, which has created a restaurant repair and maintenance app, is raising donations to buy meals from the restaurants on its platform and deliver those meals to frontline workers and patients facing the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our goal is to essentially mobilize the entire community and ecosystem to support our frontline heroes and patients.”
After seeing initial financial support from the venture capital community, ResQ is now opening up donations to the general public. The startup is providing bulk orders to restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area to drive more revenue to those businesses, while contractors will also make money for delivery.
“Due to COVID-19, social distancing and business closures are having a dramatic impact on the viability of restaurants and their ability to support their employees in the service industry,” CEO and founder of Res Q Kuljeev Singh told BetaKit.
“Our goal is to essentially mobilize the entire community and ecosystem to support our frontline heroes and patients while helping the local economy when businesses need it the most,” he added.
Since the initiative began on March 30, ResQ has added more than 75 restaurants and four hospitals to the platform. Singh told BetaKit the money raised will be used to deliver more than 5,000 meals.
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As of Friday, ResQ has raised the $50,000 from the Toronto tech and venture community. Some of those donors include Silicon Valley Bank, Maple, Golden Ventures, iGan Partners, Inovia, and Finaeo.
Singh said the meals will be delivered by the repair technicians and contractors that typically use its platform. The startup also intends to open the opportunity up to other service industry workers who are currently unemployed. ResQ will start by delivering to hospitals, although Singh added the startup is looking into quickly expanding into other segments.
The intent is to make an impact for all front line workers, including law enforcement, firefighters, and hospital cleaning staff. Deliveries will begin on April 6.
Update June 24, 2020:
In mid-June, ResQ launched Checklists, one of its latest initiatives aimed to support restaurateurs during the pandemic. ResQ Checklists is a free solution designed to help restaurant-owners navigate through health and safety guidelines for reopening to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
“As the industry has been forced to evolve and adapt with virtually no tools or aid to help operationalize the flood of new guidelines, Checklists is our way of giving back to the community, and to persevere alongside our customers with a relentless passion in the face of extreme uncertainty,” said Singh.
Image source Unsplash. Photo by Hermes Rivera.