Georgia Bar Owner Pulls $3,714 From Walls To Pay Unemployed Staff

Write Comment

Georgia Bar Owner Pulls $3,714 From Walls To Pay Unemployed Staff

While the coronavirus crisis continues to cripple everyone, from millionaires and small businesses, one bar owner in Georgia has found a way to pay their unemployed staff, pulling $3,714 from its venue’s walls.

For nearly six years, The Sand Bar in Tybee Island welcomed a tradition for patrons to staple bills all over the walls and ceiling. After closing her bar doors on March 23, due to the safer-at-home emergency order, owner Jennifer Knox decided to spend 3 1/2 days removing the bills to pay her now-unemployed staff.

Knox ended up with $4,104 after pulling $3,714 off the wood panels, plus donations. She was able to pay $600 per each of her six staff members, and now says “Awful timing for everybody, but we’re all in this together. “I looked around and thought, ‘We had to get this money in the hands of people who need it.’ One of our musicians can pay his rent now because of the money and he was bawling. We were all crying because of how much it meant to her, it was amazing.”

Knox continues, “Everyone on our island works in the service industry in one way or another so there is a lot of need right now. I’m glad we’re able to help in our own small way. I don’t know if people will recognize the bar now. But we’re trying to come up with neat ways to continue some kind of tradition here for costumers.”