As of today, restaurants and bars are not allowed to open their dining rooms. While they can do carry out and delivery, the dining room closures will impact thousands of service workers.
According to RTV6, Central Indiana has over 80,000 hospitality workers, including servers, bartenders, baristas, hosts, barbacks, or back-of-the-house associates.
Jeb Banner is the founder of Boardable, an Indianapolis-based company that offers nonprofit board meeting software. He has created a Google doc and is encouraging workers to add their name, job location and occupation to the list, as well as their Venmo account. Then, ideally people can pick a name from the list and send a virtual tip.
To “tip” a worker, just go on Venmo, search their name and choose an amount.
Hey Indy friends- while you are hanging out at home tonight don't forget to leave a Venmo "tip" for the service workers you would have been ordering food or drinks from. 700+ here, sorted by business, with Venmo info. https://t.co/MtSBotMUnu
— Jeb Banner (@jebbanner) March 16, 2020