Luca Di Pietro's Tarallucci e Vino Restaurant on the Upper West Side was not a complete family operation, until now that is. His wife Kate Felsen Di Pietro, and kids Isabella and Ian, are all pitching in to send thousands of free meals to medical workers around the city.

"We feel that every day the demand is increasing. Nurses are texting us, they are calling us, they are putting in requests through out website," Luca old us.

With four of his five Taralucci e Vino restaurants closed and and his Upper West Side location doing just take out and deliveries, di Pietro received an intriguing order from a friend in Canada last week for 40 dinners to be delivered to medical workers. The entire family mobilized around the idea and created Feed the Frontlines NYC, which relies on donations from the public to prepare and deliver free meals to hospital workers.

“When he told me about the idea I thought it was an amazing idea and I got some of my friends together who were all ready to help,” said Isabella. “A friend of mine helped me set up the website in 18 hours." 

In just a few days Feed the Frontlines NYC had raised nearly $350,000 and delivered more than 5,000 meals to 13 hospitals. Di Petro sees this as a way to help the frontlines and restaurant workers. He's already brought back 30 laid off employees. Now he's inviting other restaurants to be part of the effort.

"Hospitals are sending me schedules of what they need so I would ideally to be working with … these schedules to various restaurants,” Di Petro said. “We partner with [them] and say, ‘OK, this is what you're going to do Monday through Sunday, and just invoice us at the end of the week and transfer the funds to you.’ We want to make it as transparent as possible.

"We have people who are sick patients and people who are helping so selflessly because it is scary and dangerous and most New Yorkers are asked to stay home. These people are asked to go to work and it's a war, and they're on the frontlines," he added.

"We're really happy to be working on this together. We feel really fortunate that we're able to do our part," Isabella said. 

A $25 donation buys one meal but you can donate any amount. For more information and to donate go to FeedTheFrontLinesNYC.org.