Disaster relief

WCK On the Ground in Türkiye and Syria

by David Klemt

A week after deadly, devastating earthquakes struck Türkiye and Syria, World Central Kitchen has served more than one million meals.

KRG Hospitality supports WCK and their mission, and has done so for years. In fact, donating to WCK is a core element of our KRG Cares program.

There’s a lot of bleakness and darkness dominating headlines. Negativity continues to infect social media and public discourse. All too often, people are focusing on one another’s differences, feeding the drive to divide rather than unite.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to give into cynicism and pessimism. We don’t have to take the bait and allow ourselves to wallow in outrage.

Look at what Chef José Andrés, Patricia Andrés, and the WCK team accomplish as an example. When disaster strikes, WCK is there to provide support and relief. The WCK Relief Team mobilizes, WCK organizes and finds support partners, and those in need get hot meals.

On February 6, two earthquakes Türkiye and Syria. The first earthquake registered 7.8 Mw (Moment Magnitude Scale), while the second was 7.7 Mw. According to recent reports, the death toll has surpassed 42,000. Millions of people in both countries lost their homes.

Yesterday, a 6.4 Mw quake struck the Türkiye-Syria border. Reports claim another eight people died and hundreds more were injured.

Making the monumental task of providing relief even more challenging is the conflict in Syria. Still, WCK, Gift of the Givers, and 25 restaurant partners are providing meals in Türkiye and Syria. Meals for those in Syria are prepared in Türkiye and then delivered to a hospital.

The Spirit of Hospitality

I don’t want to come off as preachy in this article. However, I think there’s been a departure from hospitality that our industry needs to address.

It behooves us to remember the role that restaurants, bars, and hotels have played traditionally in their communities. Ours are places of welcome, of warmth, of support.

In other words, our businesses are places of hospitality. That word isn’t simply an industry or trade designation.

Restaurants, bars, and hotels around the world have long been the cartilage of their communities; they brought everyone together. In many cases, hospitality was the beating heart of a community, not just the connective tissue.

Two people with opposing word views were able to set aside their differences over a drink and a bite to eat. We need to get back to that element of hospitality. Neighborhood restaurants and bars, regardless of category, are sanctuaries. Each one is an oasis, and we need to remember that. We’re about inclusion, not exclusion.

The WCK is perhaps an extreme example of what our industry can do for others. That makes the organization no less exemplary and deserving of emulation.

If you’re able to do so, please consider supporting WCK.

Image: World Central Kitchen via Twitter

How to Help NOLA’s Hospitality Workers

by David Klemt

Hurricane Ida has left hospitality workers in New Orleans displaced and without work, stability or a sense of normalcy.

When Ida first made landfall, the storm was designated Category 4, meaning winds were between 130 and 156 miles per hour. The storm “weakened” to Category 2 with windspeeds up to 105 MPH.

When Ida hit Louisiana Sunday, August 29, it did so 16 years to the day that Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

Multiple sources have reported New Orleans residents as saying Ida’s battering of the city felt as though it lasted longer and was stronger than Katrina.

Sadly, the damage and horrific memories of Katrina continue to reverberate throughout New Orleans to this day. Social media posts and news stories reveal residents of the city are already afraid they’ll be abandoned by the rest of the country.

We can’t allow that to happen.

Devastation

We won’t know the true toll Hurricane Ida has taken on New Orleans for some time. In fact, we won’t know just how severely ravaged the country is—from the South to the Northeast—for weeks, if not months.

Currently, the loss of life seems to be much, much lower in comparison to the casualties from Katrina.

However, the entirety of New Orleans lost power after Ida struck. The private company that provides power to New Orleans, Entergy, reported one million power outages.

Some outages have been fixed. But tens of thousands of residents remain without power—and therefore without air conditioning.

Per the Entergy website, it may take until September 8 for power to be restored in most neighborhoods. And that’s just in New Orleans. Cities and towns in parishes throughout the state of Louisiana may be without power for weeks.

Of course, power outages are just one issue. As Tales of the Cocktail CEO Eileen Wayner explained on an emergency episode of the Bar Hacks podcast, we won’t know about the breadth of Ida’s destruction for weeks, at the earliest.

We have no way yet of knowing about the true extent of: evacuees being relocated safely; access to clean water and food; property damage and loss; infrastructure damage; hospitalizations; and the toll on the city’s economy.

Tens of thousands of New Orleans residents have been displaced. The same goes for cities throughout Louisiana.

That means tens of thousands of hospitality industry workers are unable to return to their jobs. These workers, part of our hospitality family, must now navigate evacuation and survival without their steady sources of income.

In fact, they don’t even know if they’ll have a place of business to return to when they’re able to get back into their homes.

Responding immediately, Tales of the Cocktail has partnered with several organizations to provide relief to New Orleans hospitality workers.

These partners include:

For now, Wayner says the best way to support New Orleans hospitality workers is to donate to the above organizations.

Additionally, Wayner and Tales of the Cocktail board member Neal Bodenheimer plan to provide more information via Instagram Live on Wednesday, September 8 at 9:00 AM CST. Click here to make sure you’re following Tales on IG.

One of the keys to helping New Orleans and the city’s hospitality workers recover is to, as Wayner says, “keep the volume up.” So, please share their posts and the posts of their relief partners.

Image: Mary Hammel on Unsplash