Businesses sponsor lunch during National Hospital Week

In years without a pandemic, Whitfield Regional Hospital would treat its employees to a picnic barbecue to celebrate National Hospital Week.

Instead, this year several sponsors, led by South Fresh Feeds, united to serve a catfish dinner to both shifts at the hospital as well as first responders on Wednesday.

Jimmy Hughes is vice president of South Fresh, a business that is considered essential during the pandemic outbreak. The company had to take precautions to keep the coronavirus from spreading, and his own employees made sacrifices to work.

It was then he realized “how much more the hospital had to protect themselves and their families,” he said.

The carry-out lunch was a way to honor the hospital employees “and say we recognize their sacrifice,” said Hughes.

South Fresh brought its food truck to the site, and employees – all wearing masks – stood in a loose line to accept their meals of catfish, fries and hush puppies. Hughes estimated the sponsors would serve between 350 and 400 people by the end of the day.

Other sponsors of the event included John Deere, Sun South, Alabama Farmers Co-op, First South Farm Credit, Winfield Equipment Rental and Harvest Select as well as WRH itself.

The special lunch was one of several ways the hospital and other businesses in Demopolis helped celebrate National Hospital Week. Southern Care Hospice and Comfort Care Hospice both provided ice cream treats, and on different days employees were to be served donuts, a pancake breakfast and pizza.