The Cullman Regional Medical Center Foundation is showing its gratitude to hospital workers with a Day of Thanksgiving. The foundation is buying lunch or dinner for about 550 hospital employees as they go through the cafeteria on Thursday.

Foundation President Jerry Lawson said the board recognizes that the staff is under a lot of pressure right now with caring for patients, concerns from family members and loss of revenue due to the coronavirus.

“There’s a lot of pressure that’s on a lot of people that’s beyond the physical risk of being a hospital that’s caring for people with COVID-19,” said Lawson. “It’s beyond the hard work, the long hours; there’s a lot of emotional pressure we know they’re under. So we felt feeding them is nice, but making it a Thanksgiving meal says ‘we know that you are going to bat for our community and we appreciate it.’ We’re thankful.”

Several local businesses, organizations and restaurants teamed up to provide the meals for hospital workers, including Newk’s, Jersey Mike’s, Curt’s Closet, Tonya Wilson State Farm and Pasquale’s Pizza and members of the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce in coordination with Buffalo Wild Wings and Augusta’s.

The Foundation usually does a Thanksgiving meal for hospital staff around the holidays, but Foundation Executive Director Maria Stanford said they decided to do it now. “The foundation board wanted to let the health care heroes know we’re behind them 100 percent.”

“We’re grateful to the food nutrition team to help make this happen,” said Stanford.

The foundation provides support to Cullman Regional through fundraising and community engagement. Two years ago, the foundation was able to provide the hospital with additional ventilators for the critical care unit.

“They had the vision that we were under sourced for things like ventilators, so they turned to us to ask if we could raise funds for that,” said Lawson. “We were happy to do that.”

Last year, the foundation raised funds to equip the hospital’s ambulances with cardiac monitors and defibrillators. This year, the foundation’s goal is to raise enough funds to purchase a new ambulance.

The Foundation Gala, which was scheduled for this weekend but has been postponed, is one of the foundation’s largest fundraising activities. Others include a golf tournament and Lights of Love holiday event.