The COVID-19 pandemic has brought different struggles upon many people, but a few Regina businesses are doing their part to bring some cheer and smiles into people’s lives.
Rebellion Brewing Company is offering free tacos to health-care workers until Sept. 26.
It is a small token of appreciation for people that have put in a tremendous amount of work since the pandemic struck last year.
“Health-care workers are pretty burnt out,” Rebellion president and CEO Mark Heise said. “They’re pretty frustrated and have to deal with some pretty tough working conditions over the last year.
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“Rather than lashing out, or getting angry about it, how can we put a little bit of love and care back into the world?”
Stone’s Throw Coffee Collective recently started a giving tree, which gives customers the option to purchase an item from the store and place it on the giving tree for someone in need to redeem later.
“It might be the next person in line, it might be next week, it might be someone that comes in every week that doesn’t have money to buy food themselves,” Stone’s Throw chief coffee slinger Kim Zacaruk said.
According to Dr. Gordon Asmundson, a University of Regina psychology professor, “these acts represent an approach of compassion and kindness during a time characterized by a lot of anger, disagreement and stress.”
For Rebellion, they have been receiving orders for tacos hand over fist since they started the free tacos initiative on Sept. 21.
“The response has been overwhelming. Yesterday we did almost 200 orders of tacos and I think we’ll be doing several hundred more over the week,” Heise said.
For Stone’s Throw, even though their initiative has only been going on for one day, it is already serving its purpose.
“It really sunk in when the first person came in and took an item off of the tree,” Zacaruk said.
“They walked in and brought a coffee tag to the till and they said, ‘Can I do this?’ We said, ‘Absolutely,’ and they just beamed and they said, ‘I’m going to come in next week and replenish the tree.'”