LOS ANGELES, April 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today invited Los Angeles County restaurants to apply for pandemic relief through the California Restaurant Foundation's (CRF) Restaurants Care Resilience Fund. Qualifying restaurants may now apply for a $3,500 grant to help them rebound from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund was co-founded by SoCalGas and represents the company's single largest community donation to date. The program is expected to help about 125 restaurants in LA County, that have suffered losses, pay for things like payroll and hiring new employees. The Resilience Fund applications will be open through April 18, 2021 and can be found at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience.
"Restaurants, especially those owned by people of color, have been among the most impacted by the pandemic," said Adolfo Varas, executive director at the Compton Latino Chamber of Commerce. "We thank SoCalGas and the California Restaurant Foundation for their support to small businesses. And we encourage independently owned restaurants to apply for the Resilience Fund."
"We are proud to partner with the California Restaurant Foundation to support small business in one of the hardest hit industries by the pandemic," said Andy Carrasco, vice president of communications, local government, and community affairs at SoCalGas. "By investing in the long-term success of local restaurants, we can also preserve jobs and help our communities thrive."
"We know that restaurants have a lot going on right now so we wanted to make this application as simple as possible. It should take about 30 minutes to complete and we have checklists and tools available on our website to help," said Alycia Harshfield, executive director of the California Restaurant Foundation.
The Restaurants Care Resilience Fund is part of a statewide effort between the California Restaurant Foundation and energy companies. The program focuses on long-term resilience for small restaurants that have struggled the most during the pandemic. In addition to the $3,500 grant, restaurants will be welcomed into a cohort and receive one year of support services and resources to improve their businesses for the long term.
Grants will be available to single-unit, California-based restaurants with a staff of 50 or fewer employees. To qualify, the restaurant must be a SoCalGas customer, currently open, and have experienced a revenue loss of at least 20 percent from 2019-2020.
SoCalGas is dedicated to supporting the health, safety, and wellness of our community. In addition to supporting the Restaurant Care Resilience Fund, the utility has donated more than $4 million to nonprofit organizations to support the region's workforce, feed the hungry, provide bill assistance to customers, and more as part of COVID-19 recovery efforts.
For more information about SoCalGas' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit www.socalgas.com/coronavirus.
About SoCalGas
Headquartered in Los Angeles, SoCalGas® is the largest gas distribution utility in the United States. SoCalGas delivers affordable, reliable, clean and increasingly renewable gas service to 21.8 million consumers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California. Gas delivered through the company's pipelines will continue to play a key role in California's clean energy transition—providing electric grid reliability and supporting wind and solar energy deployment.
SoCalGas' mission is to build the cleanest, safest and most innovative energy company in America. In support of that mission, SoCalGas is committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its operations and delivery of energy by 2045 and to replacing 20 percent of its traditional natural gas supply with renewable natural gas (RNG) by 2030. Renewable natural gas is made from waste created by dairy farms, landfills and wastewater treatment plants. SoCalGas is also committed to investing in its gas delivery infrastructure while keeping bills affordable for customers. Over the past five years, the company invested nearly $7.5 billion to upgrade and modernize its pipeline system to enhance safety and reliability. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), an energy services holding company based in San Diego. For more information visit socalgas.com/newsroom or connect with SoCalGas on Twitter (@SoCalGas), Instagram (@SoCalGas) and Facebook.
SOURCE Southern California Gas Company
