The Restaurant Employee Relief Fund, founded by Guy Fieri and the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation in March, has raised $ 20 million funding. The Support Fund, which aims to reach 40 thousand restaurant employees, gave support to 10 thousand employees in a short time.

The Restaurant Employee Relief Fund, or RERF, founded by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation and Guy Fieri, has reached $20 million, officials confirmed Tuesday. The fund provides restaurant employees with a one-off $ 500 to meet key needs such as homes, schools and medicines. However, the website opened for applications on April 2 had to close due to too many applications. The system was closed again on 9 April, with 63,000 people applying. “You do the math of 63,000 people times $500 a piece, that could be over $30 million, and we were nowhere near there in our fundraising,” NRAEF President Rob Gifford said. The fund, which raised $ 20 million with PepsiCo donating $ 3 million during former The Office series actor John Krasinski’s Youtube show, made the first donations in the third week of April, and restaurant workers began seeing the checks. RERF, which has supported a total of 10,000 restaurant employees to this date, does not separate people for donations based on reasons of need. To be eligible, hospitality workers must have been employed in the restaurant industry for at least 90 days, had a significant loss of income due to COVID-19 and they have to be able to document it.