Owensboro residents create online platforms to help recently unemployed

March 19, 2020 | 12:07 am

Updated March 23, 2020 | 2:55 pm

Hundreds of food service workers in Daviess County are now without a job due to the spread of COVID-19 across the country.

Gov. Andy Beshear has enacted a number of preventative measures over the last week in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus in Kentucky, and one of those measures included shutting down all dine-in service throughout the state. Though restaurants can still deliver food to customers, the service and bartending industry has been, for the most part, obliterated.

With years of experience in the food service industry, two Owensboro men have decided to do whatever they can to help the hundreds of others during this possibly months-long pandemic.

Jared McDonald and Matthew Hudson, both of Owensboro, created two different online platforms to help those in need while they’re out of work. A Facebook group, Owensboro Service Industry Appreciation was created by Hudson and a GoFundMe, Owensboro Service Industry Support Fund, have garnered hundreds of members and raised more than $1,200 in 24 hours time.

McDonald said he had the idea to put care packages together for those in Owensboro who are out of work, though increasingly empty shelves at supermarkets made it difficult to find even the basics for these care packages.

So McDonald reached out to Ben Skiadas, operating partner at Lure Seafood and Grille, who had contacts with food purveyors who could help with some of the basic food items.

“Most of those who work in the food service industry are out of work right now and have been told the earliest they can go back to work is sometime between the 9th and 12th of April,” McDonald said. “Even just a few days of this [shutdown] affects them. It’s a really tough industry for everyone anyway, and most of them don’t have a savings account to fall back on.”

Hudson’s Facebook group provides information from a variety of sources for those falling on hard times right now, including unemployment information, ideas for stocking your pantry, foods that boost your immune system and lists of grocery items that often get overlooked, but are still in stock at most supermarkets.

A line cook at Fern Terra assisted living facility, McDonald said he’s one of the only people in the industry with a steady job right now, but that he totally understands the hardships being put on the hundreds of others, many of whom he and Hudson call family.

“It’s family, it really is,” McDonald said. “For a lot of them, [those they work with] are the only family they have. I’ve been gone from Lure for about a year now, and Ben was the first person I hit up about this.”

Mcdonald and Hudson aren’t just helping those in the food service industry, but all of those whose jobs have been affected by the COVID-19 spread. McDonald and a bartender friend of his, Charles Turner, have talked about serving hot sandwiches outside to those who need them and dropping off box lunches to truck drivers at the nearby truck stop on KY-2830.

Mcdonald said he would also like to see grocery stores donate items to the cause so that more care packages can be put together.

It’s tough times right now, but McDonald said he’s grateful that other industries, such as utility companies and banks, have been empathetic to the position this quasi-shutdown has created for many people.

“The government is doing its best, but a lot of people are going to fail in that process and fail those in the service industry,” he said.

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The Owensboro Health coronavirus hotline is available 24/7 by calling 877-888-6647. Call the hotline before seeking in-person care. More information from OH can be found here.

For the latest information and data on COVID-19 in Kentucky visit kycovid19.ky.gov or dial the Kentucky state hotline at 800-722-5725.

For the latest health guidelines and resources from the CDC, visit their website here.

March 19, 2020 | 12:07 am

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