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Traverse City Restaurant Hits Milestone Giving Free Meals to Kids

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J&S Hamburg on South Airport Road is celebrating another major milestone in its efforts to give kids in need free meals.

At the start of the pandemic, the restaurant launched ‘Project Feed the Kids.’ The owners Jason and Tiffany McQueer wanted to help kids who didn’t have access to school lunches or if they were simply in need.

“I said to my husband, ‘man, I wonder who’s feeding these kids on the weekend?'” says Tiffany McQueer. “They’re doing all this through the week. Who’s feeding the kids on the weekend? And he simply said, we are. And I said, oh, we are? What are we going to do? And then we developed Project Feed the Kids. We wanted to do it because we were when we were younger, our kids were in need. When we were kids, we were in need. So now our kids are packing meals for children in need.” 

As of this past weekend, Project Feed the Kids is now at 75,000 meals. Every week, meals are bagged and placed in a cooler outside the restaurant’s front door. They are there for anyone who needs one, and as much as they need.

“75,000 is heartbreaking,” says McQueer. “To have that big of a need in our economy, in our local communities here, that I mean, it’s heartbreaking. It’s sad that there’s that many people that need that much help. And I wondered what happened before we started this.”

One family McQueer remembers helping brings a smile to her face when she thinks back on it. It was a family they helped during Christmastime. The father was in the hospital with COVID-19, on a ventilator. The mother came in asking for help for her four small children. McQueer says they helped the family with Christmas dinner.

“Those are the stories that we absolutely love,” she says. “The dad actually recovered. I just met him in person. He’s amazing. You don’t always see the other side of things like that…one day when she was coming up, the kids were coming up and they asked if they could come in and give me a hug. It’s just their little eyes…you’re helping people. It makes the kids happy. It brings a smile to their face.”

Project Feed the Kids is a 501(c)3 and relies on donations and volunteers. People can donate money at the restaurant, mail donations, donate food items or visit the or .

“Each meal costs about $2 to produce. We’re doing about 900 meals every weekend, so added up it’s quite a bit of money a week to even be able to do it. So donations are always needed,” says McQueer.

McQueer says there are  locations at the restaurant in Traverse City, in Kingsley at The Rock Youth Center, and soon, Kalkaska, but only if someone offers a location for a cooler to go. Coolers are open on the weekends after the meals are prepared.

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