The Texas Restaurant Association (TRA) has begun collecting funds for a grant program to help the state’s 50,000 restaurants and most especially the 1.4 million workers they employ.
“We clearly do not need any restaurants closing, which would then mean staff being laid off, so we need to keep our restaurants thriving and keeping people employed,” says Steph Smith, Director of Workforce Programming at the TRA.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an order on Thursday March 19 limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people and forbidding restaurants from serving dine-in consumers, restricting orders to delivery, drive through, or take out.
The TX Restaurant Relief Fund will provide immediate financial relief to independently owned restaurants to save employees jobs. They’ll be distributing grants of up to $5,000 per unit, earmarked specifically to keep doors open and workers employed. “If you want to offset sick-paid-leave, or if you want to just pay out an employee to help sure they can make a car payment, pay their rent, or get food. This literally goes to the workforce,” says Smith.
To donate:
Text TRRF to 31996
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Go to txrestaurant.org/TXRestaurantReliefFund
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Email: trrfdonation@txrestaurants.org