100 days of service during COVID -19

Claire, New York

Elmhurst Hospital & Queens Riviera V Pizzeria will celebrate 100 days of giving pizzas to Frontline Workers in thanks for their Noble Service during the pandemic on Friday, July 24, 2020, 12:15 pm at Elmhurst Hospital Main Entrance 79-01 Broadway NY 11373

Riviera V is a small pizzeria in Oakland Gardens, NY at the crossing of Union Turnpike and Springfield Boulevard, in Queens. It’s known for its mouthwatering homemade tomato-based sauce and specialty pizzas and pasta. When Governor Cuomo announced the statewide lockdown in March, Queens resident Amit Guha, owner of Riviera V, took the initiative and teamed up with Ballori Sengupta, a health tech management professional and Ahmed Jirari, the owner of a small printing business, to face the COVID-19 crisis in their own way.

Their hearts went out to the healthcare workers who risked their lives and sacrificed their own safety and precious time with their families to care for thousands of strangers relentlessly. With this in mind, the team had one simple question: if medical professionals could risk their own lives and help people, why couldn’t they?

They decided to put each of their expertise together to provide food and emotional support to the medical staff.  The team’s mantra?  It follows India’s great philosopher and spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda’s heartfelt conviction, “Service to mankind is service to God.” Their 100-day journey started with a plan to serve the nearby Long Island Jewish Hospital (LIJ) from the end of March 2020 to the end of June 2020.
With the steep rise in Covid-19 infections and Elmhurst Hospital becoming the center of the epicenter of the disease in the country, the Riviera team quickly responded to the needs of the hospital staff.
The team began providing meals to not only the staff at Elmhurst and LIJ, but also to five other hospitals, a couple of police precincts, and firehouses, post offices, and financial institutions.

The team realized that the battle with Covid-19 wasn’t ending anytime soon and they’d need the community’s support to sustain the effort to provide lunches every day to help alleviate the stress in these difficult times until the crisis was under control. The team was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from organizations and individuals in the community. The 100 days of service will be reached on July 24, 2020.

“I would like to thank Riviera V Pizzeria team for their kind and generous donation(s) over the past 100 days. This wonderful gesture has helped cheer us and give us hope as we continue to care for the community during the COVID-19 health crisis,” said Israel Rocha, Vice President of NYC Health + Hospitals and CEO of Elmhurst Hospital.

“It is by God’s grace and our compassion for humankind and willingness to help that has placed us in a position to serve our brave hearts in such trying times. At times, we didn’t think we were going to be able to pull it off, but it was like it was meant to be and things just mysteriously worked out.” ~ Riviera V Team.

This initiative has been a true testament that we truly hold strong as a community and that human decency is far from lost. United we stand and God bless all.