ORANGE PARK – A Clay County man is spending up to $1,000 a day to buy 100 meals from a different local restaurants to support their business and to feed 100 employees of a local hospital.

Tom Silverblatt isn’t a millionaire. He doesn’t have a history with the healthcare field, nor does he have a history with the restaurant business. He’s never done anything like this. He’s looking at what could amount to $30,000 for local businesses in support of local healthcare professionals at Orange Park Medical Center after deciding that he wanted to support the community during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The idea was to create a win-win-win situation,” Silverblatt said. “I get to help my community; local restaurants get $1,000 of my business every day and 100 healthcare workers at [OPMC] get fed a great meal.”

Silverblatt knows there are organized charities that help with this kind of thing but that he prefers to beat to his own drum. That’s why he decided to do this all on his own. It didn’t go exactly as planned at first though.

He remembers calling up a local restaurant and telling them he’d like to order 100 meals only for them to ask if he was a scammer. Realizing how the restaurant could be worried about that kind of thing, he tried again, this time explaining that he’d like to purchase 100 meals for healthcare workers at OPMC.

Silverblatt reached out to OPMC and got in touch with OPMC Community and Public Relations Coordinator Andrea Crowder. He told her what she wanted to do, and she was on board immediately.

“My thought was, ‘wow, this is incredible,’ and after thanking him a lot, we worked together to make this happen,” Crowder said.

Crowder said she and Silverblatt worked with local non-franchise restaurants to get each restaurant to create a menu with three delicious and unique meals. He pitched the idea to restaurants as not only a way to feed the heroes on the frontlines of the pandemic, but as a way to potentially earn new customers. Silverblatt recommended restaurants create a deal for workers that can show their hospital badge.

The restaurant sends the menu to OPMC and from there, the doctors, nurses and others select what they want from the menu. Crowder tallies them up and sends the orders back to Silverblatt. He orders the meals and $1,000 and 100 meals later, the restaurant’s business is cooking and healthcare workers at the hospital are eating meals cooked especially for them.

“The response has been amazing,” Crowder said. “The employees are shocked to know that these businesses and people like Silverblatt are so willing to help out and give so much of their money and time for them.”

Silverblatt said the workers at OPMC deserve the meals and so much more.

“These are people risking their lives for us,” Silverblatt said.

He hopes to possibly start a chain reaction of meal purchases around the country. He said there are people all around America that could spend what he’s spent on meals for healthcare workers.

“If this were to go from coast to coast, think of all the local businesses and hospital workers we’d be helping out and supporting,” Silverblatt said. “I don’t know if that will happen but if it did, it’d truly be something special.”

Silverblatt selects a different restaurant each day and has meal plans made through April 16. He hasn’t repeated a restaurant yet, purchasing meals from local joints like Whitey’s Fish Camp, Mackey’s Munchies and Chubby’s and hopes to continue this through the end of the month. He would ideally be able to order meals from a different business every day but said if he has to repeat in order to support only local restaurants, he’ll do so.

“These restaurants need as much help as possible right now during these times and these hospital employees need all of the support they can get,” Silverblatt said. “I’m just trying to do my part.”