Guy Fieri Helps Raise $20M For Restaurant Workers

SANTA ROSA, CA — Celebrity chef Guy Fieri, a Santa Rosa resident best known for his "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" Food Network show, is back at it. During the 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires, Fieri was known to cook meals for fire victims and firefighters. This time around, he is helping with a cause closer to his heart.

The restaurateur whose start in the restaurant business goes back to Johnny Garlic's in Santa Rosa, helped launch an effort that has brought in $20 million in donations to support restaurant workers financially affected by the coronavirus crisis.

As many as 8 million workers in the U.S. food-service industry were left jobless overnight as public health orders shut down dine-in service.

Early in the crisis, Fieri partnered up with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation which in turn launched the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund.

"He says they've already awarded more than 40,000 grants — worth $500 each — to workers facing extraordinary hardship due to the pandemic. Anyone who wants to donate to the cause or apply for a one-time grant can go here," TMZ reported.

NRAEF says the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on the restaurant industry — and most importantly the organization itself, a group of people passionate about pursuing careers within it — made clear that the most positive impact it could make would be to help its restaurant workers in need.

"We believed the best thing to do with our time was to create a new way to help the industry in a time that’s more critical than ever before," NRAEF said.

Fieri is helping out closer to home, as well. He has filmed a series of "Meals with the Mayor(s)" to encourage community members to support their local restaurants by ordering takeout and delivery.

This article originally appeared on the Healdsburg Patch