Pete Freedman
More Than 100 Area Establishments Participated In The Day-Long #DTX4HTX Campaign To Raise Money To Fund Houston-Area Harvey Relief.
When we announced the #DTX4HTX campaign in the immediate wake of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall in the Houston area, our hope was that maybe 20 or so establishments around town would join in on the cause and help our fellow Texans regain some footing after having their lives turned upside down by the massive natural disaster.
We were then totally floored at at the generosity that followed, as more than 100 area bars, restaurants, music venues, movie theaters and other entities — including the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association, which generously volunteered to join us in recruiting businesses, organizing the event and coordinating the overall effort — rallied behind the cause, agreeing to participate in a citywide effort in which they would each donate 20 percent of their sales on Wednesday, September 6, to charities aiding the affected people in and around Houston.
Today, we are excited to announce that the campaign was an unequivocal success. In total, we can now confirm, the #DTX4HTX campaign raised $67,777.40.
That money will now be divvied up between two entities: Trusted World, the Dallas-based disaster relief coordination charity that works hand in hand with schools and churches in disaster-affected regions to distribute the specific goods and supplies that these people need to get their lives back on track, will receive 60 percent of the money raised (a total of $40,666.44); and Children of Restaurant Employees (CORE), a Nashville-based entity that aims to support the families of “food and beverage service employees navigating life-altering circumstances,” will receive the remaining 40 percent (a total of $27,110.96).
Combined, these two charities will work to ensure that Houstonians receive support both right now and in the long term.
Since Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, CORE has received 34 applications from food and beverage industry workers in need to assistance in getting their lives back on track. Before receiving a check from the #DTX4HTX campaign, the charity had received enough donations to support eight of those in need of help. Now, thanks to the funds raised in Dallas on September 6, CORE will immediately be able to provide assistance in the form of VISA gift cards to each and every one of the remaining 26 food and beverage industry families — including 45 combined children — waiting in line for their applications to be accepted.
“Receiving the email from DTX4HTX this morning brought us incredible relief, knowing that we are now able to reach out to the 26 families remaining in line for support and let them know that grants are coming their way,” CORE’s executive director Lauren LaViola says. “Once we make contact with the families and get a good mailing address, they will have their gift cards within days. A thank you from us may seem small, but please know that our thank you is coming from each and every family you are helping us to support!”
Trusted World, on the other hand, will use its portion of the money raised to focus on long-term assistance to Houstonians who need it. Just as it is still working in conjunction with its partners in Baton Rouge in the wake of the 2016 Louisiana floods, Trusted World expects that it will be working with its Houston collaborators for the next three years, providing support in three phases. After having initially worked to provide food and water to southeast Texas residents right after Harvey hit, Trusted World is currently embarking on the second phase in its three-step support process by disseminating cleaning supplies to families looking to dig out from under the mess left by the flood waters. Soon, the organization will transition into its third phase, going door to door in the neighborhoods in and around Houston that have been hit the worst, working to help people understand what, if any, coverage is provided by their home insurance and to further assist them in purchasing sheet rock and furniture so that they may properly rebuild their homes. Funds raised by the #DTX4HTX campaign will support those efforts and will also be used to help fund any other needs that may come up in the future.
“For the next three years, we will continue to monitor what is going on in Houston, collect what our contacts tell us they need and provide them those supplies as they need them,” says Trusted World CEO and founder Michael Garrett. “Anything we need that hasn’t already been donated to us will need to be purchased. The money raised in the #DTX4HTX effort will be used to fulfill that.”
Much like Trusted World, our plan is to continue providing aid to our friends in Houston, too. To that end, we and our partners at Printed Threads have decided to keep selling our #DTX4HTX T-shirts for the foreseeable future, and using the proceeds from any additional shirt sales to continue supporting these two charities. If you are interested in purchasing a shirt, you can do so here.
Your support is greatly appreciated. The #DTX4HTX campaign evolved into an undertaking far larger than we ever could’ve anticipated when we first started brainstorming about it, and pulling it off would not have been possible without the assistance and generosity provided the participating businesses who donated portions of their sales, the volunteers who helped us staff some of the events, the organizations that helped us coordinate this effort and all of you out there who made a concerted effort to visit the participating entities on the day of the campaign.
We thank you for your help. But, more importantly, our friends in Houston thank you too.