ORANGE PARK – Daniel Cobreiro, the owner of Cobre Professional Property Management, is another business owner who is going through tough times. He understands, though, that he isn’t the only one, and in the grand scheme of things, he doesn’t really have it all that bad.

That’s why he partnered with his friend DuWayne Hegel, owner of Urban Bean on Park Avenue, to provide more than 500 meals for the healthcare professionals at the Orange Park Medical Center and staff at Orange Park Town Hall.

“It just stirred something in me, and I said you know what? Rather than just sitting here at home and you know, hiding out, like the rest of us are doing, let me see what we can do to get together,” Cobreiro said. “I’ve known DuWayne for the last five or six years now, and I know they had to shut down too because of this pandemic. So, I said let me reach out to him and see if there’s something maybe him and I can get together… and see what we can do.”

Hegel liked the opportunity to work with Cobreiro to make it happen. What they could do was to feed as many mouths as possible of the hospital’s medical staff. They worked out the finances and logistics. They split the cost 50/50 between the two businesses prepared 542 meals. Of the meals, 500 were delivered to OPMC, and the other 42 to Orange Park’s first responders, town staff and sanitation workers.

Cobreiro talked with a director of events at OPMC to get an estimate of how many meals would need to be prepared and came back with 500. They prepared the fork-ready lunches of chicken with beans, onions and rice.

“It’s tough for businesses like mine and like the Urban Bean as well, that we are shut down,” said Cobreiro. “But that gives us at least the ability to shelter-in-place. Whereas you’ve got these frontline workers and health care workers, that they’ve got no choice. They’ve got to put their mask on day in, day out, and just their job to protect all of us and our families.”

Cobreiro and Hegel both feel blessed despite their current financial hardships. They never expected to be able to put together so many meals for lunch in one day. They understood that everyone to whom they donated has a family at home, whose health they may be risking in doing their jobs to help others.

“We were honestly trying to do this under the radar,” Cobreiro said. “But if there’s any good that comes from people reading this story or hearing about what we did, hopefully, it motivates other people that maybe just didn’t think about it, to do the same.”