 My name is Andy Huang, the incoming chairman for Hawaii Reshaw Association and vice president and chief operating officer for LNL Hawaiian Barbecue. Mahalo for joining me here on Reshaw of Hawaii on the ThinkTech platform, while Cheryl is away. It has been almost three months since the Armawi Ohana has been devastated by the Lahaina wildfires. Thousands were displaced from their homes, businesses were destroyed, and many lost their lives. Specifically for our food industry workers, how can they receive financial assistance from grants? The support from the Hawaii community and all over the nation has been overwhelming. However, the recovery effort is a marathon, not a sprint. The supports continue to ask how and what can they do to help. The number one answer has been money. Joining us today for this special conversation, Giving Kitchen, this amazing group provides financial assistance to those facing hardship, particularly in food service industry. Today they will share with us how they provide help and explain their easy application process. I would like to welcome our guests today. We have Lea and Sean. So please introduce yourself. Mahalo, Andy. Aloha. I'm Lea Melnick, senior director of field operations for Giving Kitchen. Aloha. My name is Sean Helani. I am the director of partnerships and outreach for Giving Kitchen. So hi, Lea. So, you know, can you share about us how and who is Giving Kitchen? Absolutely. Giving Kitchen is a non-profit organization that helps food service workers in crisis. When we talk about food service workers, we're referring to anyone that works in a restaurant, food truck, catering, concessions, bar, tap room, or even cafeteria, like inside of a school or hospital where food service is taking place. We do that by offering a couple of different programs, such as a financial assistance program, as well as a stability network program for when they find themselves in crisis. For financial assistance, we have an eligibility and criteria to be eligible for that financial assistance based on whether or not you've experienced illness, injury, death in your immediate family, or disaster like blood or fire, as recently happened in Maui. And our stability network is encompassed of several community resources across the entire country, including in Hawaii, where we're able to connect folks to find free and discounted services, whether they're in need of things such as, you know, mental health or substance abuse or recovery or food, or things outside of what you might seek with our financial assistance program. This is amazing. And, you know, how did this organization created? Like, you know, who founded the organization? Yeah, that's a great question. So Giving Kitchen was founded, got our 501C3 in 2013. Back in late 2012, there was a local chef here in Atlanta, Georgia, where we are headquartered, that was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. I'm sorry, it was gallbladder cancer. When that happened, he and his wife were trying to figure out what to do to make ends meet. He had been a chef at several different restaurants across Atlanta, and so many of the different restaurants that knew about what he was going through all came together. As so many of us in the restaurant industry do when someone's in crisis, we pass the hat, we figure out how we can support one of our own. They got together and they threw a big party and decided that all of the proceeds from that party would be pulled together to help Ryan Heidinger through his cancer diagnosis. In one night, trying to raise about 20 to 30,000 to help them through that treatment, they raised nearly 300,000 in one night. So when the community came together for Ryan, it was really apparent that not only are there more people like Ryan in the food service industry who are going to find themselves in times of crisis where they need support, but that the community is here and ready to support them. So Giving Kitchen really started out of the crisis of Ryan Heidinger. It started with the fight for one person, and now it's the fight for many across the nation. His wife, Jen Heidinger Kendrick, is now, she's our founder. She is still our spokesperson here. We're an organization that started serving food service workers here in Atlanta, Georgia, where we're based, and it's slowly grown to the point now where we are serving any food service worker across the United States. Well, no, this is amazing how it has grown from since 2012 to now. It's only 10 years. It's not super long, right? It's long enough by super long about how it grew to today's size. That's amazing. And Sean, could you please tell us, our viewers, where is the Giving Kitchen base out of and how is it funded? Sure. So we're based out of Atlanta. We've got three different resources where we get our funding from, fundraisers, private donors, as well as running corporate sponsorships. Very cool. Yeah. And how can people apply to, and what kind of documentation do they need? Yeah. So if they're sick, they just need a doctor's note and proof of employment. If it's a death in the family, we would just need a certificate. And it's all based on their needs. It's a very simple process to ask for help. That's very nice. Yeah. Sometimes when you're in serious trouble and you don't know what to do, and if you have to provide a lot of documentation, it delays all the support they can receive. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how would you be led to part of the Giving Kitchen? Oh, my favorite story, of course. I come from the industry as well. And at the time, I was helping to run a barbecue restaurant here in Atlanta. One of our chefs, actually our executive chef at the time was diagnosed with breast cancer. And this was around the same time as Ryan Heidinger of Giving Kitchen got his diagnosis. So what we were doing as a barbecue restaurant was that we were trying to do what we could to raise money for our own teammate. And we were throwing our own fundraiser to support her through her fight. And we were just doing that as one restaurant. As we pulled together and through our event, it happened to be the week after Team Heidi was planned for. Jen and Ryan, after their event, showed up to our fundraiser and got on stage and announced for the very first time that they were going to create Giving Kitchen and that they were donating to our chef that had gone through her own diagnosis. Back before that, once I graduated from college, I had worked in nonprofits. I became an AmeriCorps member and I was working for hands-on network that merged with Points of Light back in 2008. So I have a background in nonprofits. I'd worked in the industry and when I heard that not only was there a nonprofit being created, but it was one being created to help the people that I work with in my own industry, it just felt like the most perfect marriage of what I'm supposed to be doing. I ran right up to them, asked them what they had available, how I could volunteer and how I could help them get this organization started. They immediately let me get involved, finding things to do outside of working and running the barbecue restaurant until I just got to a point where I had kind of developed myself into a position here at Giving Kitchen and I've been here ever since. What a story that seems inspirational. How about Sean, how did you get into the industry and with Giving Kitchen? I got into the industry when I was 15 years old back home in Connecticut. We went to go visit my friend at a local diner and he had to give us notice because it was travel baseball season coming up. His boss turned to him and said, well, you better find me somebody. I pulled on my friend's apron string pointed to myself. He introduced me to his boss, worked for that gentleman for three years. It was some of the best years of my life. I got involved with Giving Kitchen over 10 years ago when I was running restaurants here in the city. One of my employees was hit from behind in her Jeep and it rolled a couple times and so she was going to be out for a bit. I had heard about Giving Kitchen through press media, but it was a little busy getting the restaurant up and running, but somebody had reached out on our behalf and submitted a claim for her. They reached out, they took such amazing care for her. A couple months later, they had reached out asking if they can do an interview with her in our restaurant for the press kit. Of course we obliged and got to know the team and some wonderful people such as Jen and Naomi at the time and pulled Naomi aside and just asked her how we as a restaurant group can get involved and how I can get involved as an individual. She mentioned volunteer opportunities so I started volunteering 10 years ago and my first volunteered gig was at a pop-up talk where we provided or they provided at the time free medical care for food service workers and I was just in awe of what they did and how well it was managed and how much they really genuinely cared about the care that was being received by those food service workers and the resources that were also available then and I just knew right in there and then this is going to become my second family. I'm going to do whatever I can to promote them and get involved and then this past March at Team Heidi the executive director pulled me aside and said we need to talk. I would like to have you over on this side rather than this side and thought it was sort of kidding but I was sort of glad to hear that but I did love my job as a consultant but made the decision to come over and I couldn't be happier. Oh yeah and so you know how about any Hawaii have you received any application from Hawaii? We have we have we received quite a few we have several connections in Maui with chefs who were from Atlanta originally and I was putting contact with one of them through a mutual friend and he reached out and I made sure that he shared the information with his contacts with the people that were out there that he knew personally. And you like during our private conversation earlier you mentioned that you actually you know open restaurants in Hawaii so you have a little history of Hawaii and if you can you know tell us what kind of a connection that you have with Hawaii? Sure yeah so I was asked to go out there and open up the Daven Busters in Alamoana in 2000 and I was there in 2001 the hardest thing I ever did in my life was ever leave Hawaii I didn't want to. I wasn't forced but my boss and I had a great working relationship and he was being sent to Colorado so I left the March 15th May 15th it was 82 degrees and I landed in Colorado snowing 41 degrees in board shops board shorts flip flops and a tank top but yeah I missed the island very much I still keep in contact with all my friends and I hopefully will be out there very soon. So how about Lea you have any story to share? Honestly it's just how much we want to be sure that food service workers in Hawaii especially in Maui right now know how to access us we have a place on our website it's our Ask for Help form it's available in English and in Spanish and people can ask for help at any time 24-7 by filling out that form it's at www.givingkitchen.org backslash help or in Spanish backslash Ayuda once that comes into our system they will be able to be processed by our call center and if they're going through financial assistance they'll be able to work with a case manager to go through our application process if they have any questions to make it as easy as possible um otherwise they'll get connected to a case manager for stability network or if it makes more sense to let them navigate the stability network library on their own they'll receive access to that as well we try to be as open and available as possible and our single most important mission and priority is just to be sure that food service workers everywhere know about us and can overcome the pride to ask for help when they need it there's a lot of crisis and um there's no reason anyone should have to struggle more to make ends meet um our coverage comes in the form of payments of your living expenses so it's just one less burden you have to worry about to have your rent covered to have your mortgage covered to have your basic utilities covered when you're unable to work because you're going through something like this is the very least we can do to help you avoid that downward spiral towards homelessness or eviction or other things that result from going through a small crisis we just know in our industry that when you don't work you don't get paid most times and so it's really important to us to make sure that all of those resources are in place and that our industry has access to them like so many other industries already have them ingrained naturally so is there any restrictions as far as the qualifications and what how do you vet people and how do you qualify people yeah that's a great question on the application itself all we ask is for a copy of a paycheck to verify that you work in food service our team of case managers is able to work with you if you don't have access to specific documentation that's required for the qualifying criteria for financial assistance as Sean was noting too earlier illness or injury a doctor's note is perfect with you know amount of recovery or definitely a diagnosis included in there death of an immediate family member death certificate funeral invoice obituary or two types of documents that can help and support that and with flutter fire which I know is most relevant in Maui right now we look for some sort of incident report or official documentation that can verify that you lived at the address that had that damage so that we can work to figure out how we can pay to cover living expenses for you is it covering rent or mortgage while repairs are being done is it helping to pay for living expenses because you're staying somewhere else while some of that repair work is being done or are you going to move completely and you need help with a deposit or first month's rent after going through the crisis that you've been through so what's great is our case managers can work with each person to figure out if you have one of those four qualifying crises how to fit you in that box how to make sure you're getting the right documentation possible to get the help that you need um surprise this cat we got a visitor um but for our stability network program we do not require any documentation whatsoever uh we simply if you ask for help our resources are available to you that's amazing you know that's also another question I was going to ask is like you know um most of our um you know Maui residents who's in the disaster the house were burned down you know and a lot of time a lot of them don't even have access to the internet the power you know so to get help it's it's very it's going to be very difficult and then how would they uh how would they receive the help like how do they receive the money and how the money what's the process that's a great question um for the financial assistance program we generally will send checks written out to the providers and we will mail them to the address that's provided on the application by the person filling it out so whether or not that's the home address or it's a temporary address where they're staying our case managers will work that out with them the checks are made out to the providers so they can simply use them to pay whatever is needed whether it be rent for the home that they were living in previously or whether it be rent or a mortgage for a new place that they might be moving into because of the crisis that happened and same with the utilities we mail those to them and they would send them out to the utility companies or take them in however they usually pay them yeah so I mean since you guys have been around for over 10 years I think and you must have seen many different disasters right and what are some of the other challenges or maybe that you know our viewers don't know or don't understand that you know what can they do to help those in need and get the message to them any example or any experience that you can share um you know Sean or Leia you don't want to yeah I mean it's just really spreading the word you know if somebody's been helped you know with through giving kitchen you know asking them to spread the word um somebody can actually refer somebody because they've heard of us and this is really is just getting the word out and I think Leia mentioned before our main goal is to make sure that every single food service worker across the United States knows that there is somebody there there's a group or an organization available to them to take some burden off their shoulders during time of need and and how can our viewers help and support that you'll program yeah I mean they can visit the kitchen giving kitchen website you know www.givingkitchen.org there's a donate button where you know we're always open to receiving donations and most grateful for those and again spreading the word you know they can they can host private dinners and and donate the money there there's a lot of ways they can do it they can get you know they can have them reach out to us we're more than happy to walk them through it do you have any um uh recipient story that you can share in you know maybe Maui if you do have one or somewhere else that that that helped you know what do you have any uh stories like the one I shared earlier my very first employee who was hit from behind in her Jeep enrolled at four times she was out of work for four months and received rent and utility assistance during that time and that was a big burden off her shoulders so she was able to be well and recuperate and just focus on her healing to get back to work healthy thank you so much so you know um we're coming close to the end of the show um Leah do you have anything to add our viewers or any other thoughts comments just so much gratitude for you and everyone with the Hawaiian restaurant association as a whole partnering together with organizations like yours or anyone else listening in who would like to partner with giving kitchen we would love to work with you to figure out how to get the word out better to make sure that food service workers know about giving kitchen to make sure food service workers feel comfortable asking for help about giving kitchen um and to make sure that we're getting to know what crisis looks like in all of Hawaii so that we are addressing those needs as best as possible thank you so much for having us and thank you so much yeah anything what i'm sorry i think we should point out that there's no cost to ask for help there's no repayment once they receive a grant it's it's it's that's what it is it's a grant amazing yeah so what would what are the typical size of the the individual can receive and how long can they receive the help um so basically they are eligible to receive assistance up to a maximum of two months worth of assistance we don't have a monetary cap we measure it based on length of time and we feel like you know once you have eight weeks to figure out what to do next to have that coverage of your living expenses it gives you an adequate amount of time to figure out what that next step is or whether or not there's more help you need that you can also access through the stability network platform that we have um as far as the amounts of the awards right now they're at an average of around 1800 per person but the average amount of time you know the amount of time that each food service worker needs to be out of work or needs that assistance definitely varies depending on the type of circumstance that they're going through wonderful wonderful yeah thank you so much for you both Sean and and Leah for sharing and and giving our Maui community a little more extra hope yeah thank you so much for joining us today um hello for having us yeah mahalo mahalo thank you yeah for closing um the hawaii restaurant association is the organization unifying representing and supporting the hawaii restaurant and food service industry thank you very much for watching and see you next time