Bugaboo Creek Steak House provides Christmas meal to local hospice

This past Christmas morning, while most families were gathered around a brightly decorated tree opening presents, something very special was happening in the heart of Fayetteville.

At Portsbridge Hospice, the nursing staff was busy providing 24-hour care to their terminally ill patients, giving up time with their own families to bring comfort to their patients and families.

At Bugaboo Creek Steak House, employees gathered in the closed restaurant to cook a Christmas meal for those in need as a way of reaching out to the community, a goal of the restaurant in the coming year.

“As a new restaurant in Fayetteville, we wanted to show the people in this community who support us that we support them too," said general manager Eric Johnson. "We really want to reach of to the community, and providing a meal on Christmas day was a way to start.”

Susan Cramer-Connell, a manager at Bugaboo Creek, approached Portsbridge Hospice with the offer of a Christmas meal and personally delivered the food, enough to cover both shifts of nursing staff, along with visiting family members and patients.

“We even had employees who volunteered to cook special dishes at home, holiday favorites and such, and brought them to the restaurant Christmas morning so we could deliver those as well,” Johnson said. The Bugaboo Creek kitchen stayed open well past business hours on Christmas Eve, cooking and preparing the meals for the following day.

Mary Jo Wilson, the founder of Portsbrige Hospice, said the gift was very appreciated by the staff and families at the hospice. “It was nice for our employees, who had to be away from their own families, to be taken care of in that way. They all volunteered to work on the holiday, and it meant so much more to receive that food because it was Christmas,” she said.