MIAMI – Doramise Moreau toils long past midnight in her tiny kitchen every Friday – boiling lemon peels, crushing fragrant garlic and onion into a spice blend she rubs onto chicken and turkey, cooking the dried beans that accompany the yellow rice she’ll deliver to a Miami church.
She’s singlehandedly cooked 1,000 meals a week since the pandemic’s start – a an act of love she’s content to perform with little compensation.
Moreau, a 60-year-old widow who lives with her children, nephew and three grandchildren, cooks in the kitchen of a home built by Habitat for Humanity in 2017.
Her days are arduous. She works part-time as a janitor at a technical school, walking or taking the bus. But the work of her heart, the reason she rises each morning, is feeding the hungry.