BOSTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $7.3 million to the State of Connecticut to reimburse the Yale New Haven Hospital for the additional costs of preparing and distributing meals to patients and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The private, not-for-profit 1,541-bed teaching hospital with multiple campuses is a subsidiary of Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation, and will receive a total of $7,344,662 in federal funding through FEMA’s Public Assistance grant program to reimburse the hospital for the additional cost of providing meals between January 2020 and December 2021.
Morrison Food Service, with whom the hospital had a pre-existing contract to stock, prepare, and distribute food at their facilities, pivoted their service to COVID patient meal preparation and distribution, cleaning of high-touch services in the meal preparation areas, and purchasing of disposable materials (e.g. paper-plates/Styrofoam containers/plastic silverware) for COVID patient meal delivery.
“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist the State of Connecticut with these costs,” said FEMA Region 1 Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich. “Providing resources for our partners on the front lines of the pandemic fight is critical to their success, and our success as a nation.”
FEMA’s Public Assistance program is an essential source of funding for states and communities recovering from a federally declared disaster or emergency.
So far, FEMA has provided almost $396 million in Public Assistance grants to Connecticut to reimburse the state for pandemic-related expenses.
Additional information about FEMA’s Public Assistance program is available at https://www.fema.gov/public-assistance-local-state-tribal-and-non-profit. To learn more about the COVID-19 response in Connecticut, please visit https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4500.