Hospitality Helping Hands is a West Palm Beach, FL, non-profit and was brought to life on the crushing night Rodney Mayo, owner of Subculture Restaurant Group, was forced to lay off 650 employees. This was personal to Rodney and while there was a lot he knew he couldn’t do to help his people, he knew he could do one thing – ensure each of them and their families got at least one good meal every day.
 
Then Rodney called his longtime friend, Kimberly Mitchell, who runs the Everglades Trust, a statewide nonprofit working to save America’s Everglades. The two have come together for too many community causes and emergency situations to count, spanning 40 years. Most recently the two put their heads and rolodexes together to address the tragedy unfolding in the Bahamas as the islands endured a catastrophic hurricane. Out of their phone calls and text messages, Bahamas Relief Cruise was borne. Two days after the storm had passed, BRC and an army of 350 volunteers, food, emergency supplies, doctors, nurses and firefighters headed east on the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Ship to Grand Bahama. Learn more about this remarkable community feat that has lasted for months here: bahamasreliefcruise.org
 
Kimberly has never been able to say no to Rodney – and he has been there for every tough assignment she could throw at him. Luckily, the two had been partnering up with Maura Plante with Living Hungry on several initiatives providing free meals and food to underserved families in the Glades communities, so that was his second phone call. Within hours, Maura had engaged more charities with needs than could ever be imagined and the initiative began. Visit Living Hungry's website - learn more, click here.
 
Kimberly’s first call was to the Mayor of West Palm Beach, Keith James, whom she served with for years on the Commission. The Mayor and his staffed sprung into action and within three days the entire City Commission and the Downtown Development Authority agreed to help underwrite a portion of the plan that ensures more than 500 seniors in the city a day would receive a healthy and delicious meal. Maura enlisted farmers with food to spare and groups in tremendous need.
 
Rodney’s next calls were to his partners at Subculture, all the general managers of his 17 establishments and all the men and women who make the engine run. “What if we were able to put some of our kitchen staff back to work and pumped out thousands of meals a day that would feed the Subculture family and thousands of other restaurant workers who now don’t have a job?” asked Rodney. “What if by helping so many others we could also ensure our dishwashers and line cooks could stay employed?” The answer was “Hell, yeah” and a model for successfully incorporating the private sector, non-profits, community and city government took off. They haven’t had time to look back since.