What do you do with 65,000 pounds of fresh produce that can’t be used by the closed north Alabama restaurants you serve?

If you’re FreshPoint, a regional produce distributor based in Nashville, you give it away Saturday to laid off food service employees and anyone else who shows up. The company set up three distribution points on the Madison County Courthouse Square and at Taziki restaurants in south Huntsville and neighboring Madison.

“The hospitality industry are our people,” Freshpoint’s Daeghan Hawke said. “We wanted to help families in need, but especially those we work with on a daily basis in the hospitality industry and are out of work. We just wanted to step up and do our part.”

“Things are obviously a little slower for all of us, and we had some food,” she said, “so we realized we could spare some and give it away. So we said, let’s do it.”

Hawke’s husband, Luke, is executive chef at Domaine South, a popular wine bar and restaurant on the square, so that’s where the food giveaway was held.

With the line going down the street and around the corner, Downtown Huntsville Inc. President and CEO Chad Emerson explained the spacing procedure. Cardboard boxes were placed a safe distance apart, and the line moved from flat box to box toward the food tables. “We were getting too crowded,” Emerson said. “so now we’re playing hopscotch.”

Sheila Johnson from Hazel Green was one of the people in line. She left her restaurant job March 12 and was thankful for the fresh food. “I have an autoimmune disorder,” Johnson said. “So, I can’t go many places now.”

Another woman in line was an instructor from Alabama A&M University. She was picking up food for some elderly friends who couldn’t make it downtown and held up a giant, fresh pineapple for a photograph.

The giveaway was scheduled to end at 4 p.m., but Luke Hawke said the clock didn’t matter. “If there’s a line and we have food, I’ll stay here until it’s gone,” Hawke said.