Heroes of the Day: Father-son team feeds hospital workers from family eatery
Aspiring physician’s assistant Mark Boccia woke up in the middle of the night amid the coronavirus pandemic with an idea to better feed hospital workers — and immediately phoned his Queens restaurateur father.
“I called him up at 2:30 in the morning. I said, ‘Dad, I think I have a really good idea,'” Boccia, 26, told The Post.
Boccia wanted to use his father’s Bayside eatery Bourbon Street to make free meals for health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus battle.
Since April 1, the father-son duo has now delivered 700 meals and counting to medical workers and EMS across the city, raising more than $48,000 online for their project, called “”
“When Mark came to me on this, it was so right up our alley,” said his father, Mark Boccia Sr., 56. “It’s always been part of our life helping out the community.”
The younger Boccia, who is studying to be a physician’s assistant at Touro College in Manhattan, told The Post he started the project to give back to the nurses and doctors who helped him during his clinical rotations.
“Right now, I’m in school. I’m not licensed, I can’t be on the front line,” he said. “I felt a responsibility to support all those people who have dedicated their time to educating me.
“The things that they’re going through in these hospitals [are] absolutely insane. And the last thing that they should have to think about is what they’re going to be eating.”
The dad agreed to make the meals — including vegetarian options — out of꧋ an extra kitchen at 𒁏the restaurant.
“We’re helping out in the way we know how,” Boccia Sr. said.
“It brings a lot of joy, a lot of happiness in such a bad time.”
The men said they are humbled by the support from theꦆ community, which has grown to more than 400 donors and community volunteers in just a week.
“It didn’t matter if we got $500 out of this or $5,000 or $500,000, it’s just providing even a few meals and a few hours to our employees,” Boccia Jr. said. “I would have done it either way.”
The pair plans to dispatch 850 meals a week at some point and will be hitting nearly a dozen more hospitals through April, all while keeping the family’s trio of Queens restaurants open for takeout and their employees paid.
Boccia Sr., a 30-year local businessman, told The Post he was “extremely, extremely proud” to help his son lend a hand—and was brought to tears on one of their first deliveries.
“When the nurse came out, she came out with someone else, and [they] started to cry. And then I started to cry,” the elder Boccia said of the team’s April 2 trip to North Shore University Hospital, where they dropped off 200 meals.
“When I saw the actual emotions coming to their faces and the tears going down their cheeks, it made every second of the day worth it.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan
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