SPANISH celebrity chef José Andrés handed out sandwiches and soup in Washington DC to civil servants who have not been paid for nearly a month as a result of the shutdown of Donald Trump's administration.
Andrés (pictured), who lives in the US, owns several top-of-the-range restaurants and founded the charity eatery World Central Kitchen, famously pulled out of a lucrative restaurant deal with the president's hotel chain Trump Towers in protest over the leader's deroogatory comments aimed at Latin Americans, specifically Mexicans.
The chef said he was proud to be Spanish and to share hispanic roots with the people Trump publicly criticised, and revealed that a high number of his staff were from Latin America.
World Central Kitchen served up food for the earthquake survivors in Haïti in 2010 and also for those affected by Hurrican María in Puerto Rico in 2017.
Now, on Wednesday this week, the charity restaurant once again gave out food parcels to civil servants who have not been paid for 26 days.
Recipients gathered in central Washington DC in office clothing, nature reserve and park police and other federal uniforms, and queued up.
The line of staff members awaiting food parcels wound round the corner of number 701 Pennsilvania Avenue.
Government employees complain the shutdown is 'having a human impact' and affecting families, residents and the USA itself, and say they are feeling 'frustrated' and 'need help'.
A young Mexican woman who continues to work at her government post despite not having received her wages for almost a month complained that the administration should be 'trying to do other things better' for the USA rather than focusing their energies on building Trump's infamous border wall.
Chefs from elsewhere in the United States travelled to Washington DC to help in the distribution, and agreed that the situation was having an impact similar to that of a natural disaster – except that it was man-made.
The menus made up for Trump's workers – 2,000 dishes in total – typically sell in restaurants in the area for between US$8 and US$10, but were being handed out free of charge.
José Andrés said in a video he posted on Twitter that the World Central Kitchen's move was partly to help those affected and partly as a 'call to action' for both Republicans and Democrats alike, and for the White House.
He urged government bosses and party leaders to visit the area and see for themselves how desperate the civil servants are.
Andrés describes the shutdown as 'another type of emergency' and recalls that over 800,000 federal employees are not being paid.
Many of the staff interviewed said that if the situation continued for another month or more, they 'really did not know what they were going to do'.
Other staff members refused to comment and even hid their faces, concerned about reprisals once the shutdown was over and they were back in work.
Photograph by José Andrés' restaurant in Washington, Minibar
