FIU fund is helping restaurant staff, but it needs more money

Miami restaurants fattened up the internationally recognized South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

Now, the festival, along with Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism, has found more than one million ways to help the thousands of workers at independent restaurants and bars who lost their jobs or were temporarily laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the SOBEWFF and FIU Chaplin School Hospitality Industry Relief Fund launched in late March, Dean Michael Cheng says, $1.4 million has been raised.

Of that total to date, $940,000 has been distributed from applications processed from the more than 550 received. Of these applications, about a third have gone through the review and validation process and 183 businesses have been helped, Cheng said.

“The number of employees laid off varies per business, and based on what they reported as laid off at the time of their application, those businesses total up to 4,410 employees,” he said.

The remaining applications are in the review process.

“Our goal is to provide immediate financial relief to the employees who were laid off, but the distribution is through the businesses,” said Cheng.

STILL COLLECTING FUNDS

Yes, they are still collecting to raise money for “an industry that is the bread-and-butter of Miami,” said Lee Schrager, the festival’s founder. / While many restaurants are offering pick-up and delivery options, that doesn’t make up for the revenue lost since the county closed all in-restaurant dining on March 17.

The largest donors to date are the Chaplin School, Bacardi North America, Badia Spices and Groot Hospitality, said Cheng. But, he said, the money “is going out faster than it is coming in and we would love to encourage more donors to help our small businesses who are so crucial to the livelihood in Miami.”

HELP FROM MIAMI’S POP ROYALTY

Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Pitbull have also donated $10,000 apiece to the fund, Schrager said.

Recently, Estefan Kitchen partnered with CVS Health to match 300 of its employees from the family’s restaurants in South Florida, Orlando and Vero Beach with immediate employment.

And Pitbull and Paramount Miami Worldcenter Tower partnered to create a tower lighting synchronized with iHeart radio stations and worldwide websites to broadcast the rapper’s musical salute to healthcare professionals and public servants who have also been pummeled by the pandemic.

HOW TO HELP

More information about how restaurants and bars can apply and how you can help is on the festival’s website, sobewff.org.