Mountain View Charity and Ball Ventures recently partnered to launch a new program that benefits both local restaurants and health care workers during the holidays.

The Feeding Our Heroes program is providing free meals to employees on shift at Idaho Falls Community Hospital and Mountain View Hospital. These meals are intended as a sign of gratitude for health care workers during the holiday season, many of whom are working 12- to 15-hour shifts. More than 20 businesses donated to Feeding Our Heroes. Those donations have been used to purchase meals from local restaurants and delivered to the hospitals.

Ball Ventures CEO Cortney Liddiard started the program after a conversation with a local hospital employee. He learned how much health care workers were struggling, not only with the long hours, but also with feeling “forgotten” by the community.

“When I learned that they literally didn’t have the time and energy to go down to the cafeteria to have a meal, I realized that was a way that we could send a strong message that we care,” Liddiard said.

The two-week program will run through Dec. 26, with approximately 3,500 meals delivered in that time. So far, more than $70,000 has been raised for Feeding Our Heroes. Ball Ventures is planning to coordinate a similar program for Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center employees in the near future.

The restaurant industry has been hit hard during the pandemic. Feeding our Heroes has also served as a way to provide restaurants with extra business. However, Liddiard was surprised by the generosity of many of the restaurants he approached.

“The majority of our restaurants wanted to show their gratitude to health care workers so much that they did everything from offer discounts to give us meals for free,” Liddiard said. “That speaks volumes, because it was never our intent to ask for that. It really speaks to the spirit of giving at this time of year.”

Prepp’d, an Idaho Falls company that sells pre-cooked meals, has delivered 737 meals to the two hospitals. These orders have allowed them to offer extra shifts to their employees.

“It was a great opportunity to give our employees more hours,” said Prepp’d owner Brianne Clark. “That has been awesome because Christmastime can be tough. It’s expensive. We were able to bump up the hours of a few employees to prepare those meals.”

Community Hospital CEO Casey Jackman said his staff has appreciated the gesture.

“In some of our higher acuity areas, where the patients are very sick, our staff can’t get away,” Jackman said. “So knowing that I’m going to be coming in to work tonight and there’s going to be (a meal) waiting for me takes a little pressure off. But, even more so, the act of saying thank you has been really appreciated. ... Staff is pretty beat down and fatigued. This has definitely been, no pun intended, a shot in the arm to help them get through this.”

Local businesses that participated in funding the Feeding Our Heroes program meals include Ball Ventures, Bank of Idaho, B&T Hospitality, Idahoan Foods, Headwaters Construction, Kyani, HK Contractors, The Hartwell Corporation, Alan Clark Construction, Atlas, WaFd, Bank of Commerce, Citizens Community Bank, Zions Bank, Bateman-Hall, Okland Construction, Interior Solutions, Wheeler Electric and R. Jay Taylor Construction.