Scotiabank Arena being used to prep 10,000 meals per day for health-care workers

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Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment is using Scotiabank Arena, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, to prepare 10,000 meals a day for the city's frontline health-care workers and their families, the organization announced Friday.

With the help from its partners, MLSE has transformed the floor of the arena to a massive food production line. It is planning to run the program five days a week through the month of June, delivering approximately 500,000 meals, according to The Toronto Star's Neil Davidson.

"We're learning as we go," MLSE's vice president of food and beverage Dan Morrow said, according to Davidson. "We learned that cooking 5,000 pounds of pasta takes a long time."

Meals will also be delivered to shelters and community agencies throughout Toronto and to hospitals during shift changes. The goal is to catch frontline health-care workers going home and to provide them with a meal for four.

"These individually packaged meals are critical. And we didn't have any to give out," Second Harvest CEO Lori Nikkel said. "This is a time, with COVID, that you really need the meals. You need the food but you really need the meals."

The operation began with making 2,800 meals per day and has been steadily increasing its production. As they gear up to make 50,000 meals a week, there will be approximately 90 people working to get the job done.