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THE KREWE THAT GREW

Mardi Gras had come and gone in New Orleans, and Annelies De Wulf, an ER doctor at University Medical Center, arrived home with grim news. COVID, she said to her husband, Devin, had arrived in New Orleans. Thus for them began a bleak ritual, with Annelies returning home each day and describing for Devin the cases, the strain, the fear. What she and her colleagues were dealing with was the hardest thing health- care workers had ever encountered. No one at the time knew much about COVID, but they knew enough to know they were risking their lives. Worse, they knew they could go into work, get unknowingly infected, and bring it home to infect their families too. On March 15, however, Annelies’ daily debrief started a little differently. “A nurse brought cookies,” she said, “and it was awesome.” Devin De Wulf is the founder of the Krewe of Red Beans, a social group that marches every Lundi Gras, its members dressed in suits bedazzled in beans. The krewe also hosts an annual charity event called Bean Madness — a play on the “March Madness” name of the NCAA college basketball tournament — which involves a block party, food and celebration. With COVID-19 seemingly ubiquitous and New Orleans now known to be a Carnival-fueled hot spot, the krewe canceled its festivities. Devin, still in touch with the event’s restaurateurs, however, had an idea. “I understood what the shutdown would do to restaurants, and I knew very quickly that these are mom-and-pop businesses really important to the identity of New Orleans,” he says. He realized he could help two groups at once, and Feed the Front Line was born. He emailed his krewe. “Hospital workers are on the front lines, protecting us from a new, largely unknown and scary global pandemic,” he wrote. “Here’s one small thing we as a krewe can do: Raising money to buy food treats for hospital workers.” They would help everyone from physicians to security guards. “I know 100% they would appreciate the love right now…so…let’s buy them all a cookie! Or a brownie! Or something delicious — which will also support one of our local restaurants in this time of need!” The krewe loved the idea. Devin used $60 previously set to be spent at Tropicália Kitchen, a caterer for the now-scrubbed Bean Madness, and asked them to prepare something different from what was originally planned. He requested 60 brigadeiros , a Brazilian dessert evocative of chocolate

truffles or bonbons. It would be enough to treat a shift’s worth of workers at his wife’s hospital. Tropicália Kitchen was glad to help, and Annelies brought the goodies to work the next day. They were an instant hit. The Krewe of Red Beans, scrappy and grassroots, beat its drum on social media and, between that and word-of-mouth, Feed the Front Line built momentum. Donations started streaming in. Eleven hundred dollars on the first day. Five hundred on the second and $1,668 on the third. Devin realized immediately that he had to make a decision about how to spend that money. Restaurants, he figured, would do better if he spent as much money as possible as quickly as possible, which would, in turn, feed as many hospital workers as possible during some pretty dark days. But it was more than a matter of buying treats and racing them to hospitals: Because of COVID’s high level of contagiousness, doctors didn’t want people to just show up, regardless of intention. So Devin worked with Annelies to figure out how Feed the Front Line could make its deliveries safely, and at the best times possible for day and night shifts, without disrupting care or risking becoming a vector of transmission. The details determined, he opened his Rolodex and started dialing. “I’ve got all these restaurant contacts, and I told them: ‘ I don’t care what you make but make it delicious. They need the best meals ever right now ,’” he says. The program, born of a virus, itself went viral. Within a week, krewe members who worked at Children’s Hospital and Tulane Medical Center asked if Feed the Front Line could feed their clinics, too. The answer was yes — and it snowballed from there. People fromacross the city reached out and asked for other hospitals to be added. Devin received an email early on that underscored just how important the program was becoming for the community: “She said her dad had died at Ochsner Medical Center West Bank, and she said the staff did a great job. She was grateful that they had tried so hard, done so much, and asked if we could send food so we can say thank you to them. And it was like…we are creating love. We are helping the grieving process.” He received an email from the wife of a doctor at one hospital. She said that morale was cratering, and could they help? “Absolutely,” Devin replied. “We’re going to hook that hospital up. Give me two hours and I will have dinner for them, and every single day we will send them food.” All of the Ochsner locations were added, EMS workers, every emergency room in the city and every intensive care unit. The money

By David W. Brown It started with $60, a box of cookies and a desire to do something .

14 ROUSES JANUARY FEBRUARY 2021