Acclaimed chef and restaurant owner Erik Bruner-Yang and his wife welcomed their third child and bought their first home in January. Just eight weeks later, the same weekend they moved into their new house in Washington, D.C., the mayor ordered all city restaurants to close because of COVID-19.
The 2007 UMW graduate felt fortunate that he and his family could survive – he’s the executive chef at D.C.-based chain &Pizza. But he’d invested 15 years and lots of drive to build six successful restaurants in the H Street corridor he calls home. Within 48 hours, he said, he went from having 225 employees to just 40.
“Basically, it broke down in my hands overnight,” said Bruner-Yang, a two-time James Beard-award finalist whose name and restaurants appear regularly in The Washington Post, Bon Appetit, Eater and other national publications. “It was this really weird feeling where I felt blessed and crushed at the same time.”
He was driving along a deserted H Street when he had an idea that could make a difference – “Power of 10” – partnering restaurants with local nonprofits to distribute food to those in need. A weekly $10,000, Bruner-Yang thought, could employ 10 full-time cooks and cover food to generate 1,000 meals for hungry people, first responders and hospital workers. Now, with help from the community he’s always supported and friends made at Mary Washington, the effort to feed families, fund farmers and revitalize restaurants has taken root across the country. Read more.
The University of Mary Washington is a premier, selective public liberal arts and sciences university in Virginia, highly respected for its commitment to academic excellence, strong undergraduate liberal arts and sciences program, and dedication to life-long learning. The university, with a total enrollment of more than 5,000, features colleges of business, education and arts and sciences, and three campuses, including a residential campus in Fredericksburg, Va., a second one in nearby Stafford and a third in Dahlgren, Va., which serves as a center of development of educational and research partnerships between the Navy, higher education institutions and the region’s employers.
