Giving back to the community

Esperanza Farms neighborhood photography donation initiative

The neighborhood photography initiative was started as a way to support the St Mary's Hospital frontline staff as well as our local businesses that have been providing for our community during Covid-19. With the staff at the hospital working long hours, small businesses struggling to stay afloat and people stuck at home with nowhere to go, we thought this would be a great way to help everyone in this time of need.

The way the donation project worked was a family or individual would sign up to have their photo taken for free outside in their yard. In return for the photography service, I asked that a voluntary donation be made to support the cause. We would help a family create a memory, in return a family would help a business and in return that business would help the hospital by providing meals..it was the Pay it Forward method if you will.

The dream behind the donation project was to collect enough money to be able to pick three local restaurants...one to provide breakfast, one to provide lunch and one to provide dinner. We wanted to be able to feed as many people as possible for as many days as possible and we wanted to see our neighborhood come together in the process.

I'm happy to say that the dream came true because of the generosity of our amazing neighborhood and community members. The donation project was able to raise an astonishing $2,500. With that amount we were able to make the dream a reality. We had a total of 26 donations and a total of 21 families or individuals participate in the photography service. We also had a very generous donation from the awesome folks over at The Hideaway in Hays Beach.  I am more than proud to say I live in a community that gives this much support in a time of need!!!

As a result of a community coming together, I am pleased to say that we were able to choose three local restaurants to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for an amazing 225 staff members covering 11 departments over 4 days WOW!!! I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would be able provide for this many people. This goes to show you what happens when a community comes together. The businesses were chosen based off of a few important factors. They had to be a local small business restaurant and they had to have provided selfless service to our community. The businesses that were chosen were:

Showtime Deli in Lexington Park, Md

The Front Porch in Leonardtown, Md

Rita B Catering in Mechanicsville, Md

May 3rd at 8am Showtime Deli provided a variety of breakfast sandwiches for 60 staff in two departments

May 4th at 8am Showtime Deli provided a variety of breakfast sandwiches for 85 staff in six department

May 5th at 11am The Front Porch provided two separate meals of 25 each for 50 staff in 4 departments. One being 25 plates of Chicken and Waffles and the other being 25 plates of Shrimp and Grits.

May 6th at 7:30pm Rita B Catering provided two separate meals of 15 each for 30 staff in two departments. One being 15 plates of Chicken Cordon Bleu with Crab balls, parsley potatoes, corn, macaroni shrimp salad and rolls. And the second being 15 plates of Turkey with Crab Imperial, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, macaroni shrimp salad and rolls.

Meet some of the great folks over at St Mary's Medstar that received some of the meals

Meet the awesome folks from Esperanza Farms neighborhood that helped make this donation project such a success

Meet the businesses that provided the meals to the staff at St Mary's Medstar with the donations raised

Donation project makes local paper - SOMD NEWS