Subway Owner Delivers Meals Day And Night To Front-Line Workers

ASHBURN, VA — Local restaurant owner Vince Carbone should be delivering meals to high school sports teams at Ashburn area high schools. One of the busiest times of the year for his Subway restaurant in Ashburn Farm is springtime when he provides up to 200 boxed meals per day to area sports teams.

With baseball, lacrosse and other spring sports canceled due to the coronavirus crisis, Carbone realized he needed to do something to help people working on the front lines. Along with overseeing his curbside pickup and meal delivery business, Carbone is spending his remaining waking hours delivering boxed meals to health care workers, grocery store employees, sheriff's office workers and other people working on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis.

"I just want to work," Carbone told Patch. If working means delivering free boxed meals to the people putting their lives on the line, Carbone said that's the least he can do.

Carbone set up a Facebook group called "NorthernVA Adopt a Nurse or Doctor" to help feed workers at hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities. He then expanded the program to include first responders, grocery store employees and other front-line workers.

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His efforts received a jolt of energy when Melanie Kelly, the mother of a son who plays baseball at Briar Woods High School in Ashburn, reached out to Carbone in March with an offer to donate $4,000 she had raised from baseball families and the Ashburn community to Carbone's campaign to help front-line workers. Kelly had remembered Carbone's generosity to her son's team and wanted to help out.

Carbone has now delivered almost 1,000 meals to both daytime and night-shift workers at hospitals and other facilities across Northern Virginia.

His "Adopt a Nurse or Doctor” Facebook group page has grown to more than 600 members since it was created less than two weeks ago and donations have come in from all over the country. For example, a nurse in Atlanta learned about Carbone's efforts from her sister who lives in Ashburn and then donated money to the program.

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With the donations, Carbone has been able to bring back two employees to help fulfill the orders. He is now delivering about 50 to 100 meals a day to front-line workers as well as other facilities such as homeless shelters.

Nurses and doctors who work the night shift can easily get neglected. "He’s gone out of his way to make sure he’s delivering to the second shift," Carbone's friend Joe Kilty told Patch. Earlier this week, Carbone delivered meals to volunteers at the Ashburn Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department who were working a 12-hour overnight shift.

Carbone has three elementary school-aged children. His wife Jennifer lost her hours at a local school where she works when the coronavirus forced it to close down. She won't be able to return to work until the school reopens. He has done everything he can to keep his business going. He applied for small business loans. He's offering curbside pickup and doing sandwich deliveries to homes in the area.

For as long as he can, Carbone also plans to provide meals to people working on the front lines.

Carbone's Ashburn Farm Subway is well known for giving back to local schools and sport programs in the Ashburn area for more than 18 years. "He’s endeared himself to the community," Kilty said.

Since he started the free meal program more than a month ago, hospitals and grocery stores have thanked him for his service. A manager of a Giant Food grocery store where he delivered boxed meals came by his store in Ashburn Farm to give him a $30 Giant gift card to express his gratitude. Carbone thanked the Giant store manager but told him the gift card wasn't necessary.

The grocery store employees are the real heroes, Carbone said. "I'm just making sandwiches."

Carbone decided to give the gift card to one of his employees whose worked at his store for more than 10 years.

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When he kicked off the program, hospitals and other health care facilities were leery to accept outside food. But since six-inch sandwiches, chips and cookies come in boxes, officials decided they didn't need to worry about contamination.

Carbone said the scale of his free meal program would not be possible without Kelly's help. She now handles the delivery schedule and gets in touch with the people at hospitals and nursing homes to find out where the food should be dropped off.

Kelly said she contacted Carbone about a month ago to find out if she could donate the money she had raised and if he would make the Subway meal boxes. "It just snowballed from there," he said.

Among the first facilities to receive the box meals were the Inova Loudoun Hospital in Lansdowne, the Inova Ashburn HealthPlex and Loudoun homeless shelter in Leesburg.

"I'm in the background, reaching out to areas where I think we can help out. Without him knowing, he gets a ping that says I've scheduled something for him," Kelly said.

At the moment, Carbone is booked with orders for 50 to 100 Subway boxed meals per day for the next two weeks, she said. For the month of May, Carbone asked Kelly to schedule him to deliver 100 free boxed meals per day.

At the start of this week, Carbone had received donations totaling about $20,000 for this program, with about $5,000 coming from parents of students who play sports at the schools where Carbone's Subway delivered meals. "People from all over the United States are sending him money to keep the program afloat," she said.

Kelly said she plans to continue making new contacts and scheduling deliveries for as long as Carbone needs her help. "Wherever Vince goes, the front-line workers are so appreciative," she said.

Donations can be made to Carbone's free meal program through Venmo — @ashburnfarmsubway — or by sending a check to Subway, 43330 Junction Plaza, Suite 186, Ashburn, VA 20147. To learn more about the project, visit the Northern VA Adopt A Nurse or Doctor Facebook page.

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