Maya Hospitality Employee Relief Fund
Donation protected
I came to the states in 1978 at the age of nineteen with twenty dollars in my pocket and a duffel bag of clothes. My first job, like many, was washing dishes at a restaurant called Tango on the first floor of The Belmont Hotel.
Twelve years later, we opened our first restaurant, Pizza Capri on Halsted & Willow in Lincoln Park. It was a small operation with a handful of employees. Over time, the business grew, and so did our team. We opened several other stores, and we closed a few, including Vivaldi Trattoria, which was the restaurant located where Maya is today.
If there's one takeaway for us doing what we do for a living, it's that we love people. We love the people we get to meet through the business, and we've developed invaluable relationships with our guests through it. But there is a special place in our hearts for our staff. We love and adore the relationships we have had the privilege of developing with our team. We are a family business, and everyone that we work with is part of that family.
Our Maya Hospitality family is hurting right now, and we need your help. We adamantly support the measures being taken to protect public health. But the tension between health and economics is real. What has happened to our industry this week, in a matter of days, is catastrophic. In a 72 hour period, millions of people that work in the hospitality sector in this country were laid off from reliable, steady income. On Monday, we made the decision to lay off our entire organization so that each person could pursue unemployment benefits.
We WILL bounce back, and we are confident that the economy will turn around after we can contain the health dangers this virus has brought to the world.We fully intend to rehire everyone just as soon as we can. But until we get there, our staff at Maya and Pizza Capri need your help.
As of Monday, we had a team of 111 hard-working, passionate, and dedicated people that loved coming to work everyday to serve you. With your help, our hope is to provide each person with $1,000 to help them through this challenging time.
We have two options for you to donate, should you decide to:
If you would like to donate directly, you may donate to this GoFundMe, and 100% of all money received will be distributed equally to our staff.
If you would like to donate to our staff by purchasing a gift card, click here to be redirected to our gift card site. We will put 50 cents of every dollar purchased toward employee relief, and the remaining 50 cents will be applied toward hard costs associated with preparing your meal when you dine with us next. You will receive a full dollar of gift card credit for every dollar purchased, available for use at Maya del Sol. Again, all proceeds toward the relief fund will be distributed equally.
We realize that we are not the first to ask you for financial assistance in navigating this situation, and we appreciate that we won't be the last. We have a broad base of support and hope to build this relief fund through small charitable donations. Anything you can provide is deeply, graciously appreciated by all of us here at Maya Hospitality.
We wish you and your family health and safety, and again, thank you for your years and years of support. We would not exist without you.
From our entire team at Maya and Pizza Capri, thank you.
Twelve years later, we opened our first restaurant, Pizza Capri on Halsted & Willow in Lincoln Park. It was a small operation with a handful of employees. Over time, the business grew, and so did our team. We opened several other stores, and we closed a few, including Vivaldi Trattoria, which was the restaurant located where Maya is today.
If there's one takeaway for us doing what we do for a living, it's that we love people. We love the people we get to meet through the business, and we've developed invaluable relationships with our guests through it. But there is a special place in our hearts for our staff. We love and adore the relationships we have had the privilege of developing with our team. We are a family business, and everyone that we work with is part of that family.
Our Maya Hospitality family is hurting right now, and we need your help. We adamantly support the measures being taken to protect public health. But the tension between health and economics is real. What has happened to our industry this week, in a matter of days, is catastrophic. In a 72 hour period, millions of people that work in the hospitality sector in this country were laid off from reliable, steady income. On Monday, we made the decision to lay off our entire organization so that each person could pursue unemployment benefits.
We WILL bounce back, and we are confident that the economy will turn around after we can contain the health dangers this virus has brought to the world.We fully intend to rehire everyone just as soon as we can. But until we get there, our staff at Maya and Pizza Capri need your help.
As of Monday, we had a team of 111 hard-working, passionate, and dedicated people that loved coming to work everyday to serve you. With your help, our hope is to provide each person with $1,000 to help them through this challenging time.
We have two options for you to donate, should you decide to:
If you would like to donate directly, you may donate to this GoFundMe, and 100% of all money received will be distributed equally to our staff.
If you would like to donate to our staff by purchasing a gift card, click here to be redirected to our gift card site. We will put 50 cents of every dollar purchased toward employee relief, and the remaining 50 cents will be applied toward hard costs associated with preparing your meal when you dine with us next. You will receive a full dollar of gift card credit for every dollar purchased, available for use at Maya del Sol. Again, all proceeds toward the relief fund will be distributed equally.
We realize that we are not the first to ask you for financial assistance in navigating this situation, and we appreciate that we won't be the last. We have a broad base of support and hope to build this relief fund through small charitable donations. Anything you can provide is deeply, graciously appreciated by all of us here at Maya Hospitality.
We wish you and your family health and safety, and again, thank you for your years and years of support. We would not exist without you.
From our entire team at Maya and Pizza Capri, thank you.
Organizer
Paul Abu-Taleb
Organizer
Oak Park, IL
