Montrealers create relief fund for laid-off restaurant workers amid COVID-19

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MONTREAL — In a city home to thousands of restaurants, closures amid the COVID-19 outbreak are forcing staff into precarious financial situations.

With this in mind, two people connected to the restaurant business started the Montreal Restaurant Workers Crisis Relief Fund, designed to provide immediate financial help to workers who’ve been laid off.

“We came together with this idea and started working on it about 48 hours ago and here we are,” said co-founder Jessica Cytryn, who used to work as a server but now works in food and wine law. She connected with co-founder Kaitlin Doucette, who works as a sommelier for Olive & Gourmando restaurant group, to put this idea into action.

“I was kind of inspired to put a word out to start something like this because last week I experienced the closure of my entire restaurant group,” Doucette said. “I had seen that similar efforts like this had been launched in New York in response to [the COVID-19 pandemic]. It was really a direct effort seeing a lot of my colleagues being out of work and me myself being out of work.”

On the fund’s website, people have the option of applying for financial aid or donating to the fund. Laid-off restaurant staff who wish to receive aid are asked to fill out a simple application form.

“This is an honour-based system,” said Cytryn. “We are double checking that everyone does in fact work at a restaurant, so we’re asking people to send a redacted pay stub, but it’s completely honour-based.”

Applicants have the choice of requesting either $50, $100 or $150 to help with immediate needs such as groceries, hygiene products, or medication.

“Even looking at the applications coming in, there are a lot of people applying just for $50 or $100,” Cytryn said. “We put a kind of disclaimer in the application that if they take more, others will get less.”

As of Thursday, the fund has received 106 contributions for a total of $9,255, with donations ranging from $10 to $500. Some have been left anonymously; others are signed with heartfelt messages.

“The restaurant community in Montreal is a huge part of who we are as a city, we need to support the people who keep it running in this state of emergency,” wrote one donor.

The team at the Montreal Restaurant Workers Crisis Relief Fund consists of around 15 people who’ve spent the past few days putting this project together. Despite a mandatory five-day delay to access the donations on GoFundMe, the team will start distributing the funds to eligible applicants as soon as possible.

“For me it was really about responding to the immediate needs of my community and wanting to act in solidary to them,” Doucette said.

How long will this last?

“Until there’s no need for it,” Cytryn said.