The SUBWAY® Family Lends a Hand
 During the California State Wildfires

SUBWAY® Restaurants’ volunteers - many in their work uniforms - were pleased to help out their neighbors and communities when dozens of wildfires spread across southern California during late October 2007. An estimated 500,000 people had to leave the region because of the Santa Ana wind-whipped wildfires, which extended south from Santa Barbara to Malibu to the Mexican border.

The SUBWAY® restaurant chain has close to 2,000 stores in the Golden State, nearly half of them serving California’s southland.

According to our San Diego area Development Agent, Rohit Marwaha, a total of 37 SUBWAY® stores were forced to close during the course of the week beginning October 21st. Two SUBWAY® locations had closed due to mandatory evacuations. Luckily, the flames spared both the stores and the franchisees’ homes. However, two restaurant employees reported that their houses were destroyed. 

Rohit, the SUBWAY® owners in his territory, the Development Agents and franchisees in neighboring territories did an amazing job. Here's a recap: On Monday morning, October 22nd, Rohit and his staff accessed that the local situation was very serious, and could become even worse. Every day, they personally called all of the franchisees & stores in the affected areas and offered their help.

In addition, they sought out the organizations that were establishing shelters. At this point several franchisees were already individually contributing food to the shelters. Contact was made with the American Red Cross and, with the help of their regional food distributor, SUBWAY® headquarters, its vendors and the IPC (the SUBWAY® franchisees’ independently owned and operated purchasing cooperative), a coordinated donation and delivery program was put in place.

From October 23rd-26th, about 10,000 sandwiches, bags of chips, and bottles of water were transported to Red Cross evacuation centers based in Campo, Escondido, Murrieta, Oceanside, San Bernardino, San Diego and San Marcos, Santee and Spring Valley. Also, the local office staff, several SUBWAY® franchisees and their crew members volunteered their time to assist the Salvation Army and Red Cross workers at the shelters during the meal distribution.

Rohit shared his feelings with us. "This was a very unfortunate situation. But, I cannot tell you how proud I am with our Subway San Diego Team & with our BRAND as a whole. With the help of our franchisees, HQ, IPC, our distributor and vendors, we were able to support the (fire) victims of San Diego. We could not have done it without them."

We received kind words from NEXCOM, a division of the United States Navy that oversees retail and foodservice operations on U.S. Naval bases, that they wished to express its appreciation for the "outstanding" assistance from Geoff Freedman, a SUBWAY® franchisee with two locations at the San Diego Naval Station and one in Chula Vista, offered to firefighters battling the blazes in the area and to the Naval personnel supporting them. According to NEXCOM, Geoff provided food and beverages to 22 firefighters who were responsible for defending and saving 150 homes from the encroaching fires. 

Harold Trice, Food Service Operations Specialist for NEXCOM in San Diego, told us that, “Your operator and our COR worked together to help out some of the Firefighters who are battling the San Diego fires. The operator donated food and drinks to the Firefighters and the NEX donated supplies/clothing. Please thank Mr. Geoff Freedman for his generosity and support of these 22 Firefighters and the Military community.” 

We’ve heard that a group of Red Cross volunteers from Indianapolis, Indiana, had traveled west to California. Among them was Mike Amos, a SUBWAY® franchisee since 1993. The owner of a SUBWAY® restaurant on Route 3 in Rockville, Mike put his Red Cross training to good use by helping to manage regional assistance for thousands of those in need.

At Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains on October 23rd, SUBWAY® sandwich shop crew members were forced to leave their restaurant while an untamed wildfire approached – but its food choices and gourmet breads didn’t go to waste.

A group of famished firefighters, as well as reporters and photographers, entered the store to make fresh SUBWAY® sandwiches for themselves. For some, it was their only meal near the front lines before returning to battle the inferno. Showing gratitude for their SUBWAY® subs, one visitor wrote "Donations" on an envelope, then everyone placed cash in it as compensation.

Despite the danger of future fires, many displaced residents said they would still not live elsewhere. Richard and Jean Sanders took refuge in an Escondido SUBWAY® restaurant, assuring a local reporter that they plan to remain in their community once the crisis ended.