What started in Toronto a few weeks ago has quickly evolved into a national online platform to help front-line medical workers safely get groceries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inspired by a friend, who works as an emergency room doctor in Hamilton, Toronto resident Matthew Lombardi teamed up with a group of four others to create Grocery Hero. The initiative matches front-line medical workers with volunteer grocery deliverers in their neighbourhood via their postal code.

“My friend had been telling me for two weeks that the grocery delivery services were oversubscribed and he couldn’t get a grocery delivery service that worked with his schedule,” Lombardi said. “He and his colleagues — other doctors, nurses, hospital workers — were worried. They didn’t want to go into grocery stores right now and risk exposing the public.”

After hearing about his friend’s struggle, Lombardi took it upon himself to begin delivering groceries directly to his friend’s door. He said he soon began to wonder if there were others out there who may want to help their neighbours in the same way.

Grocery Hero officially launched at the end of March and has since garnered approximately 3,500 sign ups and has made more than 650 matches across the country. Lombardi said 70 per cent of the matches made are between people who live within a one-kilometre radius of each other.

“The best-case scenario — and we’ve already seen this developing — is that the two people we matched develop an ongoing shopping arrangement so that the platform becomes obsolete for them,” he added.

Lombardi said he was pleasantly surprised to see the number of people who were willing to volunteer for this initiative.

“I think this fills an important need in communities across the country. We knew there was a demand from medical workers, I don’t think we realized there was such a supply in terms of volunteers,” he said. “I think people are hungry to help out.”

For further information about the initiative, visit getgroceryhero.com.