Litl Pond Staff Fund

Our Group Of Restaurants 

We are Danny Mellman and Michelle Moran  - we started a little restaurant group in the Appalachian mountains over 10 years ago. It began with one little restaurant - Harvest on Main - and grew into a group of restaurants with more than 100 employees who are now our extended family, as are our guests.

Over the years we have donated more than $1 million to our community. Now, it's time we are the ones who are asking for help. We are asking our guests and fans to donate directly to our staff fund to help them with groceries, rent, medical bills, formula, car payments and more. 

It will be a long time before we recover from both the closing of businesses and the virus that caused it. 

Help us be here for our staff. For every donation you make we will send you a gift card with the same value. 

We want you to know that we will be using all these funds to supplement this incredible team's income. 

This fund will just be used for emergency resources as it doesn't begin to touch their normal pay-scales, but hopefully emergency unemployment will kick in and we will be back in business soon.

#SmallBusinessRelief

We put together this campaign for our 100 employees...while we are working hard to get a few of them some hours and we are continuing to pay health insurance for those who have it; our team of course is stressed they may not be able to make their mortgage payments, rents, pay doctor bills and more.

Even with supplemental emergency unemployment from the government, we may be facing month before our team members are fully employed again. As of today's post, the majority of our team has been laid off.

While we are completely stressed out about the future of our own businesses and our own mortgages and rent payments, it is excruciating to think about the worries they face.

So today when I got this notice of the Small Business Relief Initiative, well we had an idea. If you donate to this fund, we will send you a gift card good at any of our restaurants when we reopen. Yep, we will match your donation. (Be sure to note your name and address when you donate - we will send you your card via e-mail or snail mail whichever you prefer so be sure to let us know!)

And we also get a small match from the Small Business Relief Initiative,which was started by GoFundMe to help small businesses that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and empower their communities to rally behind them. GoFundMe has partnered with Yelp and Intuit QuickBooks to provide small business owners with the financial support and resources needed to continue running their businesses during and after the coronavirus crisis.

As part of the Small Business Relief Initiative, GoFundMe, Yelp, and Intuit QuickBooks have each donated $500,000 to the Small Business Relief Fund. GoFundMe.org, the company’s charitable and advocacy arm, started the Small Business Relief Fund to benefit small businesses. Supporters can donate to the Small Business Relief Fund and GoFundMe.org will provide grants to small businesses across the United States, starting with the hardest hit areas. The Small Business Relief Fund will be issuing $500 matching grants to qualifying businesses that raise at least $500 on GoFundMe. More partners will be announced in relation to this initiative at a later date.


“Per GoFundMe’s Terms of Service (https://www.gofundme.com/terms), GoFundMe is not responsible for any offers, promises, rewards or promotions made or offered on GoFundMe campaigns."