Recently NYS Senator James Skoufis presented an Empire State Award to Frida’s Bakery & Cafe in Milton for cooking and providing meals to the community during the covid 19 pandemic.

Skoufis said each year, “I am afforded the opportunity to present a very small number of Empire Awards to small businesses that have done something meaningful in my senate district.” Skoufis and his staff agreed that Frida’s was very deserving of the honor because of their generosity, commitment and dedication to the community during the pandemic.

“When we heard about how Frida’s was so involved with the Project Resilience and donated many hundreds of meals for folks who were out of work and who otherwise could not put food on the table and to home-bound seniors, whatever it might be, this was an easy one for us to make this kind of presentation,” he said. “I am honored to present this one to [owner] Robert Pollock and his team here are Frida’s.”

Supervisor Al Lanzetta supported the meal program.

“It started with putting down 25 seniors on the [eligibility] list that was sent up to Kingston and then we got calls from all kinds of seniors and before you knew it, towards the end, we were up to 250 meals, three days a week,” he said. “Then we started going up to the Food Bank and getting groceries also for the seniors. Robert [Pollack] was part of that; he was gracious enough to do all of this.”

Lanzetta said funding for the food program for Ulster County came from a $2 million grant through United Way.

Pollock said when the pandemic hit he was unsure how events would impact his restaurant.

“We didn’t know where we were with Frida’s at the time because we didn’t know to stay open or close,” he said. “One of the things that kept us open was doing that event [Project Resilience]. It helped unite us in some way to help other people.”

Lanzetta said the food delivery program, “was a great team effort all around,” noting that others also participated; the Valley Diner, Kirky’s Deli, the Brix Gastropub and Frank’s Deli.