NBC 6 continues to highlight organizations and people doing incredible work in South Florida during this pandemic as part of our Helping Hands series.
Style Saves is a nonprofit organization that provides school uniforms, supplies, prom dresses for students in our area. NBC 6 Anchor Sheli Muñiz spoke to its founder, Rachael Russell, and chef and caterer Jessica Eliav, who partnered up to feed families during the pandemic.
RUSSELL: Typically, with any sort of disaster, we help with relief, so that was the case when we had the hurricanes in PR, the Keys, Texas. We're always responsive to what’s going on in the local community and this was no different. When Covid hit, there were a lot of families, particularly a lot of the undocumented ones, who were making requests for basic necessities like food, cleaning supplies, so we started to pull our resources so that we could get the families in our area and get what they needed.
SHELI: Jessica, you’re a caterer and chef, how do you bring in your experience into the fold?
ELIAV: I was watching what Rachael was doing and the whole organization and, of course, all this is going on and I needed to be involved, so I’m a chef, I’m making food, so I called in my resources and I said, ‘Listen, we need some help.'
SHELI: What does this look like?
RUSSELL: So, we're actually distributing dinners daily, and right now we’ve been focusing on Miami Beach and solely on the undocumented community because those are really the ones that needed the most in our community. They’re not able to get the stimulus or apply for unemployment or don’t have cars to get to the food banks, so for us, those were the families we really wanted to try to get through this time.
SHELI: What is that like? To get that reaction from them and they’re so thankful. What does that feel like?
RUSSELL: It’s just like the right thing to do. I don’t need a pat on the back, I do it because I can and I have the means to do it, and it’s what I feel like I should be doing and I think a lot of people also feel that way, if people have more and they feel comfortable, they want to give back to others. We’ve seen a lot of that especially during these times.
If you’d like to help Style Saves feed families, you can visit its website.
