A small group of DelCo residents brainstormed on how we can help local businesses suffering from lost revenue due to the Coronavirus while connecting people from different parts of the county. ‘Priority: DelCo Thrive’ was our answer.
On Sunday, ‘Priority: DelCo Thrive’ kicked off its first one-day shopping blitz at the Red Brick Cafe in Chester. Priority: DelCo Thrive is a concept that encourages people to put their money where it matters most – at home.
Each month, a business will be identified in a different town in DelCo and offer customers a predetermined item(s) at a fixed price that will be purchased in advance and picked up on the designated day. We started with a soul food restaurant in Chester City and will likely stick with restaurants for the next few month. Our goal was to help Red Brick Cafe get 100 customers pre-order dinners. We exceeded our goal (111) at the cut-off time, but we didn’t think people would still order 50 more meals by just calling the restaurant. Red Brick Cafe also received several donations which amounted to orders they didn’t have to fill. Do the math. They earned over $3000 in revenue on a day they would have normally been closed. These days when cars drive up in the William Penn Housing Development, what’s delivered to customers in bags is food from Red Brick Cafe thanks to Priority: DelCo Thrive We kept great data and found that orders came from 24 different towns in Delaware County. Chester City placed 33 orders, Nether Providence (13), Media Borough & Middletown had 10 each, Media (7); Aston (4), Brookhaven (5), Lansdowne (2), Ridley (3), Ridley Park (2), Springfield (4), Swarthmore (5), Upper Chichester (2), Upper Providence (7), and Yeadon (2). Darby, Eddystone, Folcroft, Haverford, Marcus Hook, Marple, Milmont Park, Rose Valley, Thornbury, and Upper Darby had 1 each. Of those who ordered after cut off, Chester City led with 19, Middletown & Nether Providence had 6 each, Aston 2, Brookhaven 3, Media Borough 3, Springfield 2, Swarthmore 4, Upper Providence 3, Yeadon 2, and Eddystone, Folcroft, Marple, Ridley, Thornbury, & Upper Chi 1 each. The ‘Priority: DelCo Thrive’ committee consists of Ulysses Slaughter, Sari Steuber & Aleisa Myles of Media; Ken Dinitz & Lynn Carol Hartle of Middletown; and Stefan Roots of Chester City. Steven Fischer, Executive Director of the Chester Housing Authority, was instrumental in the logistics to accommodate the traffic flow, security, and everything else he does to keep Red Brick Cafe operational in the William Penn Housing Development. And, a special shout out goes to Darren and Pam Dickerson, owners of Red Brick Cafe, for purchasing, preparing, cooking and packaging all those orders. What an effort. Follow Priority: DelCo Thrive for upcoming events. You don’t want to miss the next event. It’s going to be even bigger. If you know a business that may want to be considered for a future Priority: DelCo Thrive event, hit the contact link on the bottom of our website.
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