(WSIL) -- The Illinois Restaurant Association said at the peak of the Pandemic there were 300,000 Restaurant Employees on Unemployment.
Now, that number is down to 120,000.
Restaurant sales across the board are down 50 to 80 percent.
Which means it is getting harder for workers like waitstaff and bussers to keep their jobs.
Now that region five is no longer allowed to have indoor dining for the time being, the Illinois Restaurant Association wants to help workers who have lost their jobs and were directly impacted by COVID-19.
It's called the Illinois Restaurant Employee Relief Fund.
It's designed so that restaurant employees who lost their jobs and were affected by COVID-19 directly, either testing positive for the virus themselves or someone in their family tested positive, can get help paying their bills.
The president of the Illinois Restaurant Association says that the fund was designed to help those who keep people coming back to restaurants.
"So we wanna be here supporting. You're only as good as the people who work for you. So restaurant owners, and vendors that sell to restaurants, we wanna help the team members. Because again, people come in for the food, but they come back for the people that work there. And we wanna support the people that work in the restaurant industry."
If you are a restaurant worker affected by COVID-19, you can apply or you donate to the Illinois Restaurant Employee Relief Fund .
