An effort to help out-of-work restaurant employees recently raised more than $20,000 and that money is being distributed in the form of gift cards.
The GoFundMe account to help the workers displaced by the COVID-19 crisis was started March 20 by Stan Swies, of the Village of Palo Alto.
Swies, who is a member of Villagers for Trump and is best known for dressing up and impersonating the president at events, had promised that “100 percent of the money donated” would be divided equally amongst the workers identified by a group of people that included restaurant managers.
On Friday, Villagers Denise Neal, Ed Cash and Henrietta Amey, also members of Villagers for Trump, were busy delivering the more than $20,000 that was collected through the GoFundMe effort.
Neal said Villages restaurants received $200 worth of gift cards to be distributed by the managers to those most in needed. One of the many eateries she and fellow Villagers Ed Cash and Henrietta Amey visited was Sonny’s BBQ in Lake Sumter Landing, where they presented Manger Dana Reeves with $200 in Winn-Dixie gift cards that were going to be handed out to her employees in need.
In March after setting up the GoFundMe account, Swies called on the Developer of The Villages to lend a hand.
“I tried to get to the people that run the leasing department in The Villages, hoping we could get some support from the Morse family in this fund-raiser, with no luck,” he said. “They took my name and assured me someone would contact me with no call,” he said, adding that other landlords in Florida were telling their restaurant leasing customers not to pay their rent in April but to give it to the workers.
