Hospitality Heros in Fort Wayne

Vera Bradley and Cinda B—two Fort Wayne-based handbag and accessories companies—are doing their part by making emergency supplies including masks and gowns for local hospitals.
Qualitex—a company about 30 minutes outside of Fort Wayne that makes automotive and aerospace products—is using its 3-D printer to make plastic masks for nursing homes and caregivers.
Three Rivers Distilling Company has temporarily shut down its restaurant and bar services to focus solely on manufacturing hand sanitizer for those at-risk working in critical and essential services. Want to support this effort? Give to their GoFundMe, used to purchase necessary materials and ingredients.
Umi—a favorite local sushi and seafood restaurant—is providing up to 500 free lunches per day for those in need. Pickup is Monday-Friday 11am-1pm. Donate here to support the program.
Headwaters Lifestyle Co. is selling “Fort Wayne Together” t-shirts and donating the profits to a local business chosen by the customer from the Fund the Fort fundraiser list. Buy a shirt here.
Meet Fort Wayne Bar Aid. The Facebook group / GoFundMe invites local musicians to host Facebook Live concerts as fundraisers. Viewers can tune in and donate, and all proceeds will be distributed among 12 local music venues to offer support during this time.
Fast Print is assisting local restaurants by printing carryout banners for FREE for those still open for takeout. Restaurants can submit their logo and/or phone number to be printed on the sign. They’re also offering a pack of 19 free 8.5×11 downloadable signs with sayings including “Social Distancing” and “Wash Your Hands.”
A local law firm, Blackburn & Green, sponsored a truckload of food delivered to the Community Harvest Food Bank on March 31. The food bank provides thousands of local residents with food and plays a crucial role in crisis situations just like this.
After closing their doors to revamp the kitchen, the owners of the Redwood Inn on Main Street decided to donate all of their perishable food to the healthcare workers at Parkview Health.
Fort Wayne enjoys a “Sister City” relationship with several cities around the world. To help medical professionals and the most vulnerable in our community, our friends in Taizhou, China—our Chinese sister city—have been quickly assembling surgical masks to send to Fort Wayne. Masks have already started arriving, and Fort Wayne expects to receive a total of 20,000 masks from Taizhou!
From magnetic sensors to ventilators! While Phoenix America, based in Fort Wayne, typically makes sensors to control motors, they’re currently working with medical professionals to create simplified ventilators to assist with health care needs on the front lines.

Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana (YLNI) has launched the #FortWayneTogether hashtag, inviting locals to share positive, inspiring stories in response to COVID-19.
A Facebook group called 2GoFW began as a way for residents to keep tabs on the status of local restaurants during COVID-19. The Facebook group was created on March 16 and now has more than 26,000 members. One resident in the group took it a step further and created an up-to-date Google spreadsheet of Fort Wayne restaurants open for takeout and delivery. She updates the sheet daily with new information submitted by the 2GoFW members.
Students and staff from Whispering Meadows Elementary school in Fort Wayne created this amazing video to thank all the helpers during COVID-19.
Even from a distance, we can all be great neighbors. As part of a nationwide movement, the City of Fort Wayne is encouraging residents to step outside at 7pm each night and wave to their neighbors!
The Fort Wayne Philharmonic’s brass quintet recorded themselves playing six feet apart, following social distancing guidelines. Watch the performance here.
Fort Wayne’s arts scene welcomes the community’s support while offering creative ways to explore. Local art galleries are offering live stream tours, and Fort Wayne musicians like Alicia Pyle have been live streaming concerts to raise money for independent artists.
Due to Indiana’s stay-at-home order, Nicholas Erb’s fifth birthday celebration was a little unconventional—and a whole lot of fun! Since a traditional birthday party was out of the question, his family, friends, neighbors, and even several Fort Wayne Police Offers, organized this amazing parade of cars. Watch the video.
A local Hungry Howie’s pizza franchise has been busy giving back lately! Two days after surprising truck drivers with 20 pizza pies, the staff delivered 30 additional pizzas to a local senior living home.