Here's How Restaurants Across the Country are Coming Together to Support the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Your next coffee, ice cream or takeout order can help fuel the Black Lives Matter movement.
Photo courtesy of Food Industry Action!
Small actions can lead to big change. That’s the message behind Food Industry Action!, a nationwide fundraising campaign that seeks to fight for racial justice, dismantle white supremacy and help give restaurants currently affected by COVID-19 a part in doing so.
"The hospitality world is reeling from the impact of the pandemic. Like us, many restaurants have been struggling, working tirelessly to bring their teams back,” Jeni Britton Bauer, owner of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, says. “But every person I’ve spoken to in the industry wants to help in the fight against racial injustice — to do something now, and commit to continued changes throughout our system over time.”
It was this desire to do something that led Bauer and Lauren Culley, co-founder of Fox in the Snow Cafe in Columbus, OH, to come together and jointly launch the Food Industry Action! campaign. “Food Industry Action is a way for us to donate what we can right now, which we hope, in aggregate, will become a meaningful donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,” Bauer says. “But it will take a groundswell. We hope restaurants across the country, big and small, will join up as a united food community and commit to supporting the work of the NAACP [LDF], and to ongoing change within our industry and beyond."
That united food community currently includes more than 200 different restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, bakeries and bars across 23 different states — with the list growing more and more every day. According to a recent post on the @JenisIceCreams Instagram page, they're hoping to reach 1,000 participants across all 50 states by the time the fundraiser kicks off this weekend.
All participating restaurants have been asked to help spread word of the campaign by using the #foodindustryaction on their personal social media accounts and through in-store promotion, where possible.
Following the end of the June 27th weekend, all participants will individually donate 5% of their overall sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They will then share their donation amounts with Bauer and Culley's teams so that a grand total can be calculated and shared later on.
For more information on how you can take part in the Food Industry Action! fundraiser, or to see a list of all participating locations and states, visit foodindustryaction.com.
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