Friends of Jack the Horse Tavern
Donation protected
To the donors of our Final Drive to support the staff of Jack the Horse Tavern:
Questions have been raised as to our handling of the funds in our previous GoFundMe campaign, to which we have been given the opportunity to address. In the first drive to help the staff Our Story read as follows:
“Hello Friends and Neighbors!
We know you missed us during the past weeks but sadly we have had to close our restaurant doors until further notice. During this time, we are raising money to support the staff at Jack the Horse who will be out of work due to COVID-19.
Let’s help our entire restaurant team who have been serving the neighborhood through these crazy times so we can come back strong.
All Donations Are Appreciated.
And when we open our doors, in what will hopefully be the near future,
we invite you to join us in eating, drinking and celebrating together!
Thank You for your support,
Tim & Micki, Jack the Horse Tavern “
We believed helping our staff included raising funds AND reinstating them in their jobs. In our haste to launch the GoFundMe page, we were not clear on the latter. The donors’ immediate and generous donations gave us hope that reopening was more of a surety than just a possibility. Believing this trend would continue we determined we would need to pay certain necessary expenses such as Liability Insurance (required by our lease), internet connection, telephone service, and burglar alarm if we had any hope of reopening JtH. Since the business bank account was depleted covering our payroll and the $2000 for employee Metro card purchases, we proceeded to pay some of the necessary expenses using a portion of the donation transfers. We have provided the GFM team with verification of these expenses.
In the first drive we began distributing $200 to each of our employees on March 30th and completed distributions on April 15th. Transfers from GoFundMe to us did not begin until April 7th , one week after distributions commenced, and continued until June 2nd.
Because donations had stopped coming in and reopening was no longer an option, we decided we would make a final appeal using a large database of email addresses. In this new appeal we have promised the donations would only be used to support our former employees. The GoFundMe team has agreed that all donations from the second appeal would be directed to our staff.
The GFM support team has restricted donations and transfers until they have confidence the current funds will be distributed as promised and have asked us to advise you that if you are unsure of our integrity you have the option of requesting a refund. There is currently $2169 waiting to be distributed to our staff and another $2725 on hold at GoFundMe. This amounts to nearly $4900 we are anxious to distribute.
We regret that our lack of foresight caused such a colossal misunderstanding. It is our sincere hope that you believe our intentions have always been true and honest.
Thank You for your support,
Tim & Micki, Jack the Horse Tavern
Questions have been raised as to our handling of the funds in our previous GoFundMe campaign, to which we have been given the opportunity to address. In the first drive to help the staff Our Story read as follows:
“Hello Friends and Neighbors!
We know you missed us during the past weeks but sadly we have had to close our restaurant doors until further notice. During this time, we are raising money to support the staff at Jack the Horse who will be out of work due to COVID-19.
Let’s help our entire restaurant team who have been serving the neighborhood through these crazy times so we can come back strong.
All Donations Are Appreciated.
And when we open our doors, in what will hopefully be the near future,
we invite you to join us in eating, drinking and celebrating together!
Thank You for your support,
Tim & Micki, Jack the Horse Tavern “
We believed helping our staff included raising funds AND reinstating them in their jobs. In our haste to launch the GoFundMe page, we were not clear on the latter. The donors’ immediate and generous donations gave us hope that reopening was more of a surety than just a possibility. Believing this trend would continue we determined we would need to pay certain necessary expenses such as Liability Insurance (required by our lease), internet connection, telephone service, and burglar alarm if we had any hope of reopening JtH. Since the business bank account was depleted covering our payroll and the $2000 for employee Metro card purchases, we proceeded to pay some of the necessary expenses using a portion of the donation transfers. We have provided the GFM team with verification of these expenses.
In the first drive we began distributing $200 to each of our employees on March 30th and completed distributions on April 15th. Transfers from GoFundMe to us did not begin until April 7th , one week after distributions commenced, and continued until June 2nd.
Because donations had stopped coming in and reopening was no longer an option, we decided we would make a final appeal using a large database of email addresses. In this new appeal we have promised the donations would only be used to support our former employees. The GoFundMe team has agreed that all donations from the second appeal would be directed to our staff.
The GFM support team has restricted donations and transfers until they have confidence the current funds will be distributed as promised and have asked us to advise you that if you are unsure of our integrity you have the option of requesting a refund. There is currently $2169 waiting to be distributed to our staff and another $2725 on hold at GoFundMe. This amounts to nearly $4900 we are anxious to distribute.
We regret that our lack of foresight caused such a colossal misunderstanding. It is our sincere hope that you believe our intentions have always been true and honest.
Thank You for your support,
Tim & Micki, Jack the Horse Tavern
Organizer
Tim Oltmans
Organizer
Brooklyn, NY
