From the (Home) Business Desk: Helping each other with groceries, hand sanitizer

When restaurants were ordered to close their dining areas last month, Tim Stearns at TJ's Burgers, Wings and Pizza in Fruitland had a choice. He could either lay off some of his employees or try to find a way to keep them working as much as he could.

Like other dining establishments in the area, he and some of his staff have continued to work the kitchen since mid-March, dishing up takeout and curb service meals, but he needed to find something more for them to do.

So TJ's added a grocery delivery service.

"We were talking to our food rep (Alex Beussink of Performance Foodservice) and kind of came up with this idea because we know groceries were becoming scarce there for a while," Tim said, adding that for many people in the Fruitland area, a trip to the grocery store means a round-trip of 20 miles or more.

And with a statewide "stay-at-home" order going into effect this week, grocery delivery will be even more important.

Marco Construction Products' "new location" -- on April Fool's Day.Photo courtesy Facebook

"We're just trying to do our part to help out," Tim told me. "Helping people who don't want to get out to the grocery stores or can't get out and just trying to help the community any way we can."

After all, he said, "they've been supporting us for the last three years."

When not preparing takeout and curbside meals, some of TJ's employees are focused on sorting and delivering groceries a couple of times a week. "My normal crew is helping," Tim said. "It's keeping them working."

TJ's started the delivery service three weeks ago by posting a list of groceries on the restaurant's Facebook page and inviting people within a 10-mile radius to call in their orders for grocery deliveries made Fridays and Mondays. "Everything we do is pre-order," Tim said. "For Friday's deliveries, we need to have orders in by 2 o'clock Thursday afternoon and the cutoff for Monday's deliveries is 11 a.m. on Sunday."

Complete details of how TJ's grocery delivery service works can be found on Facebook by searching for "TJ's Burgers, Wings and Pizza." The prices for various grocery items change from week to week, so prices are not included on the Facebook post.

Tim told me in addition to the grocery delivery service and TJ's takeout and curbside menu, he and his wife, Jessica (a nurse at Saint Francis Medical Center) are about to start offering a "take and bake" pizza. "It's something you can take home and build with your kids," he said.

The pizza kit, which he said will be available soon, will include two 10-inch dough balls along with cheese, sauce and pepperoni. When I spoke with him last week, Tim said he was working on an instructional video for TJ's Facebook page showing how to kneed and hand toss the dough.

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Speaking of food, I was at Texas Roadhouse picking up a curbside order when I looked out my car window and noticed Michelle Ramsey from the Community Counseling Center Foundation was parked next to me, also waiting for her to-go order.

As we sat in our vehicles, Michelle and I struck up a conversation (maintaining an ample amount of "social distancing"), and she told me about the help she and the Community Counseling Center received from the Jackson School District.

I asked her to send me the details so I could share the story. Here's her email (which I have edited slightly due to its length):

Jay, as promised, I'm writing my positive story about "community helping community' in the wake of the coronavirus.

I was contacted by one of our administrative members at the Community Counseling Center to see if I could find any hand sanitizer to help get us through the current shortage due to the coronavirus. Our supply was nearing depletion and our vendors were unable to tell us when they would have any in stock.

This is a huge problem for our organization. We have 30 locations across five counties -- Cape Girardeau, Perry, Ste. Genevieve, Madison and Bollinger -- including multiple locations that are residential including Cottonwood and several clustered apartments.

I shared a message on our CCC Foundation Facebook page asking for help and then started making some phone calls. I called Anheuser Busch in St. Louis to see if they would donate some of the sanitizer they make to us. They were very nice, but told me they primarily donate their sanitizer to the Red Cross. I also called several local suppliers but no one could give me a date when they might receive a shipment.

Several people on Facebook suggested we make our own, but several key ingredients we would have needed to do so were also out of stock and, more importantly, experts say making hand sanitizer is harder than it appears -- if you don't get the mixture right you could end up with something that isn't effective or is too harsh.

Thinking outside the box, I left a message for a professional acquaintance, Dr. John Link, superintendent of the Jackson R-2 School District. I explained the situation and that I had thought of him since schools are not in session. He called me back immediately, and within an hour, he had delivered to us several cases of hand sanitizer and dispensers to help us deal with our shortage.

We are so very blessed to have such wonderful community support. That's what "community" is all about -- helping each other's organizations meet community needs. Thank you again, Dr. Link. You are a true blessing to so many and we are so grateful for your generosity.

Michelle Ramsey

Senior Development Officer

Community Counseling Center Foundation

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And while we're on the subject of the Community Counseling Center, I want to acknowledge the passing of John Hudak who served as the organization's executive director the past 23 years.

John died at his home March 29 at age 73. A celebration of his life will be held later this summer.

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Marco Construction Products’ “new location” — on April Fool’s Day.Photo pulled from Facebook

Did anyone else hear the big news last week?

On Wednesday, Lucas Presson, our assistant publisher, called me first thing in the morning and asked whether I knew what was going on at Marco Construction, which, he said, was apparently moving to a new location.

I went to the company's Facebook page and there it was, in full color, a photo of the former Sears Grand on Siemers Drive with the Marco Construction Products logo above the entrance.

"Well," I said to myself, "we finally know who's moving into the Sears building."

Immediately, I called Marco president Todd Marchi, but as the phone rang, the date dawned on me. It was Wednesday, April 1.

I had fallen victim to the company's annual April Fool's prank. Last year, Todd told me, the company announced it was delivering construction products via industrial-size drones.

The idea for this year's prank was hatched several weeks ago, but it was almost scrubbed because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Ultimately, however, Todd said the company decided a little humor would be a good thing under the circumstances.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who was fooled because by Wednesday afternoon several others had called the company to find out more and the words "April Fool's!" were added to the Facebook photo.

As for Lucas, he's not saying whether he, too, was fooled.

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