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David Portnoy, Barstool Sports founder, started the Barstool Fund, which has raised millions of dollars to provide restaurant owners and staff with relief following extended COVID-19 lockdowns and tight financial situations.
Portnoy started the fund in December with $500,000 out of his own pocket and then used his connections and social media platform to get people to donate, reports the Federalist.
As of Wednesday, Barstool raised more than $32,848,538 total for restaurants that “had a proven track record of success” and “have [done] the best possible job to keep their payroll and their employees paid.”
Portnoy explained where the 200,000 individual donors came from:
I think one of the beauties of this, I’ve said it a bunch, there’s so much crap in the world right now, with politics and everything else. This is a universal, sounds sappy, but pure cause. We don’t care about Democrats, Republicans, black, white, blue, purple, we’re just trying to help small businesses, and there really should be nobody in the world who is against what we’re trying to do. It should be something everyone can rally behind.
Reportedly, the organization received tens of thousands of applications for financial relief from struggling businesses in the past month.
Before 2020 ended, Congress finally passed a COVID-19 relief bill. Millions of dollars that could have been allocated to struggling small businesses will actually be given to special interests that have nothing to do with the pandemic.
Big Government at Work
- $25 million to Pakistan
- $15 million to “democracy programs”
- $10 million to unspecified “gender programs”
- $1.5 million to The Office of Diversity and Inclusion of the Appropriations Committee
- $200 million will be going toward new cars for foreign HIV/AIDS workers.
- $40 million to the Kennedy Center for operations, maintenance, and renovations — after having receiving $25 million in the first round of relief.
