For the past week, D.C. resident Kya Parker has been cooking almost nonstop.

In the morning, she runs to the grocery store for ingredients. In the afternoon, she stands in the kitchen of her Columbia Heights home, preparing plant-based rice bowls, salads, and smoothies. Around 4 p.m., she heads out to wherever demonstrators are gathering that day—Black Lives Matter Plaza, or Malcolm X Park—to hand out her meals for free to the crowds of demonstrators that have showed up day after day to protest police brutality.

Parker, a plant-based chef who recently lost her job at Red Apron Butchery in Union Market during the pandemic, is one of the many community members working to fuel the movement that’s overtaken D.C. in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. Between self-made pop-ups and free meal distributions from local restaurants, the D.C. food scene has showed up—and has pledged to continue to show up—to support D.C. demonstrations.

“It was just a crazy idea in my head one day,” says Parker, who started making meals and distributing them to protesters on June 2. “I feel like I’m too powerful to sit back and be quiet and be complacent, and not help out in a way.”

Parker put a callout on social media for donations of money or ingredients, and quickly raised almost $5,000 in less than a week. Having worked in community outreach in the past, she says her “village” of friends showed up with food, water, and other supplies, and several offered to help her distribute them throughout the week. She estimates that she’s handed out around 600 meals since she started the project.

In addition to the plant-based lunches and dinners, Parker began supplying free essentials like diapers, tampons and pads, and band-aids, as well as lighter snacks to replenish crowds without weighing them down. She says she hopes to continue what has now turned into a pop-up pantry service even after the protests end, and work to serve residents experiencing homelessness in the city. She’s currently looking for a commercial kitchen to rent that would allow more space for volunteers and chefs.

“This is my sole mission, this is the work I want to do,” says Parker. “My goal is just to remind people that you are loved and supported not only under these circumstances, but in all realms of life. You have a network of people you don’t even know that care about you.” 

Kya’s make-shift street-store is just one of many community-led efforts that’s supported the crowds taking to D.C. streets since the demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice began on May 29. Lining D.C.’s streets last week, protesters found tables and carts handing out water, packaged snacks, and coronavirus protection like hand sanitizer and masks to keep them safe and motivated as the demonstrations carried on.

Outside of St. John’s Church, a pop-up hot dog stand dubbed “Earl’s First Amendment Grill” served hot dogs and hamburgers to those descending on Black Lives Matter Plaza. Earl’s founder Reggie Guy says that Earl’s Grill is a place for everyone, unifying in one community.

“Earl is just the common man,” Guy told DCist on Saturday, when an estimated tens of thousands of protesters were in the streets. “So it’s Earl’s First Amendment. We gotta come up with someone everyone can attach to, and Earl’s gonna be that name.”

Guy started his one-man operation with only one grill earlier in the week, and by Saturday, June 6,  it had become a two-tent operation with more than $4,000 worth of food and equipment. He says he hopes that keeping his stand running will motivate protesters to keep coming out for demonstrations.

“I came out here, they were hungry, I was hungry. And that was a reason for me to go home,” Guy said. “So I was like, if this is making me want to go home, I know I can do something to help right there—food and chairs.”

In addition to Guy’s and Parker’s pop-up meal services, local restaurants and community landmarks including Ben’s Chili Bowl, Old Ebbitt Grill, and Roy Boys also distributed food for free at different locations across the city.

Ben’s co-founder Virginia Ali—who fed the masses during the 1963 March on Washington and stayed open during the 1968 riots—prepared sandwiches for protesters on Saturday alongside her daughter and granddaughter. For Ali, serving the people fighting in 2020 is a continuation of the same fight that she participated in decades ago.

“This is not new for us,” says Ali. “[In 1968] the sadness turned to frustration, and then to anger and the uprising began, and they literally destroyed the neighborhood, so that was difficult. But [today] they’re doing everything non-violently. Huge numbers of people were there on Saturday, all over the city. For me, that momentum, that pressure, we just have to keep that going.”

At least some of the sandwiches went to 15th Street, where staff and volunteers from Old Ebbitt Grill distributed them along with meals from their own kitchen and José Andrés’ restaurant Jaleo. Old Ebbitt’s director of operations David Moran estimates the team handed out around 3,500 donated lunches from the three restaurants on 15th Street on Saturday. Moran says funds for Old Ebbitt’s meals came from Party Majority, a Democratic super PAC that runs the protest project Kremlin Annex, which is behind the daily anti-President Trump protest party outside the White House that started in 2018.

“We felt like we were not only part of a Washington D.C. restaurant but the community as a whole” says Moran. “It was a good day to be a Washingtonian. People were not okay with the way things were, and I think everyone’s hope is that there’s real change here, and that starts by listening to each other and being a part of a larger community.”

Frank Mills, the beverage director of the fried chicken and oyster restaurant Roy Boys, has been providing protesters with free chicken sandwiches near Lafayette Square since June 2, and plans to continue showing up downtown for however long the protests last. As a son of two parents from Ghana, Mills says he wanted to stand with others who were fighting against the systemic mistreatment of black Americans, and be there to help in whatever way he could.

“We knew protesters were downtown, and we wanted to be a part of it ourselves,” says Mills. “So we were like, if we’re going to head down there we might as well head down there with some food. With so many people taking on tear gas and other stressful situations, we wanted to add some warm food in their bellies to give them some energy.”

After word got around that he’d been feeding protesters for free on June 2, donations came pouring into his Venmo. Within four days, he says he’d received $12,000 to bolster the cost of cooking, staffing, and transportation. On Saturday—the day that drew the largest crowds to the city—Mills handed out 650 sandwiches, dozens of Red Bulls, cheesecakes, and mac and cheese orders.

As he spoke to DCist on the phone on Monday night, he was preparing to head back out to the Roy Boy’s Shaw location to pick up more sandwiches. He’d just received a single donation of $1,000 hours earlier.

“People are still protesting. I’m still protesting,” says Mills. “The levels of injustice, and inequality, and systemic oppression that are still occurring, have been sustained for so long that this is not something that’s going to change overnight. So many restaurants, bars, hospitality professionals, standard civilians, they really are caring about their fellow man whether or not they look like the people who are under attack. And that’s a worthy reason for me to try to support them, yet alone the people that [the protest] represents.”

Rachel Kurzius contributed reporting to this story. It has been updated to correct the title and name for Dan Moran of Old Ebbitt Grill.