A New Jersey hospital is giving back to local restaurants that went out of their way to donate food to health care workers at the beginning of the pandemic.

Jackie Boyle is a nurse at Monmouth Medical Center’s Southern Campus. She says that food is great anytime, but food donated by local restaurants during the pandemic is special.

“It meant more to us than anything they could possibly imagine,” she says.

The hospital has received more than $77,000 in food donations from the community since the start of the pandemic. Among them is Destino’s Pizzeria in Jackson.

“We wanted to pay it back, pay it forward and take care of our local heroes,” says Donato Cocca.

In a show of appreciation, the medical center launched a “Pay it Forward” campaign. It is an initiative for all RWJBarnabas Health hospitals. The campaign encourages hospital employees to support the restaurants that donated to them.

“We’ve really been intentional, making sure that we are trying to order from these places on a regular basis,” says Boyle. “The commitment that they had to us through such a difficult time, we will continue to honor them with our local business.”

Denice Gaffney of the Medical Center's Foundation says the hospital has presented restaurants, including Destino's, with "Heroes Eat Here" certificates. Hospital employees will also present thank you cards.

"We're giving out our employees these cards that say, ‘heroes eat here,’ so when they participate and go to our restaurant's vendors, they'll hand this in so they'll know that they're part of this initiative,” Gaffney says.

Gaffney says that she wants the restaurants to benefit from the kindness demonstrated by their owners and workers during the pandemic.