New Fund to Help Texas Hospitality Workers Affected by Freeze
Ever since Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, the Southern Smoke Foundation has maintained a fund to help food and beverage workers affected by disaster and unemployment. That existing resource proved extremely helpful as restaurants are bars were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Now, following a week when a brutal winter storm caused restaurants and other hospitality businesses to shut down once again — meaning a lost week of revenue for employers and lost wages for employees — Southern Smoke Foundation co-founders Chris Shepherd and Lindsey Brown have launched a specific Texas Winter Storm Relief Fund. While a dedicated page on the website about the fund is still forthcoming, the description of its purpose can be read on the Southern Smoke Foundation homepage as follows:
[The] Texas Winter Storm Relief Fund is to provide financial assistance to industry workers in Texas that have been dealt yet another blow with the winter storms that have not only shut down restaurants (again) and frozen crops but, in many cases, also damaged their homes.
In other words, last week’s winter storm didn’t only cut into hospitality workers’ wages. Thousands of homes across the city had frozen pipes which later burst, causing wet sheetrock to cave into living areas. There’s not only a shortage of available plumbers, but also plumbing supplies. Farmers across southwest Texas lost crops and ranchers lost livestock. Concurrently with their personal hardship, many restaurant owners still prepared meals for Houston’s widely suffering population. After years of one catastrophe after another, at this point you can pretty much say, “It’s just what they do.”
Those who wish to aid the Souther Smoke Foundation Texas Winter Storm Relief Fund can go online and contribute via PayPal.
The post New Fund to Help Texas Hospitality Workers Affected by Freeze appeared first on Houston Food Finder.
