Restaurants in Six Counties Can Apply for Pandemic Relief through New Grant Program

Beginning next week, restaurants in six Northern and Central California counties can apply for a $3,500 grant to help them rebound from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The California Restaurant Foundation’s (CRF) Restaurants Care Resilience Fund is accepting applications April 11-18, 2021. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) contributed $500,000 to the fund to assist small restaurants struggling in the wake of stay-at-home orders and other pandemic restrictions that have affected their businesses.

Grants are available to California resident-owned restaurants with 50 or fewer employees in these Northern and Central California counties: Alameda, Fresno, Kern, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Joaquin.

The Restaurants Care Resilience Fund is focused on long-term resilience for small restaurants that have struggled the most during the pandemic. Special consideration will be given to minority- and women-owned businesses. In addition to the $3,500 grant, restaurants will receive one year of small business support services.

“What’s really unique about our Resilience Fund is that it supports the business as well as individual restaurant workers,” said Alycia Harshfield, Executive Director of the California Restaurant Foundation. “A portion of the funds raised will provide grants for cooks, servers, dishwashers and more who face unforeseen hardship and have nowhere else to turn. So yes, we’re helping restaurants keep their crew on payroll, while also offering a safety net for when things get tough.”

To qualify, restaurants must be currently open and have had a revenue loss of more than 20% from 2019 to 2020. Funding is intended to be used on payroll and related expenses such as increasing hours and bringing on new hires.

“Many local restaurants are cornerstones of their towns and communities, and they have suffered tremendously during the COVID-19 pandemic. These small businesses provide jobs, help families celebrate important milestones, and fuel local economies. PG&E is supporting the Restaurants Care Resilience Fund to help restaurants keep their doors open, and we’re continuing to help these and our other business customers recover from the financial effects of the pandemic,” said PG&E Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Marlene Santos.

Assisting Small and Medium Businesses

PG&E remains committed to serving its Small and Medium Business customers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic began, PG&E has:

• Implemented a moratorium on service disconnections for non-payment for all business and residential customers.
• Offered flexible payment plans to support customers.
• Suspended all collection activities including notices and calls. Customers who are currently on payment plans will continue to receive courtesy reminders.
• Launched Time-of-Use rate plan outreach, contacting customers who would benefit from the new rate plan and save money.
• Provided resource information to all business customers, including PG&E resources and external support for businesses including the U.S. Small Business Paycheck Protection Program and California state support programs.
• Provided newsletters and direct mail information on COVID-19 resources.
• Conducted outreach to eligible customers to enroll in a discounted rate for businesses struggling to stay open.

For more information on PG&E Small and Medium Business customer support, visit pge.com/smbsupport.

Supporting Nonprofits Battling COVID-19

PG&E’s $500,000 contribution is part of the $1.25 million it is contributing in 2021 to nonprofit organizations assisting vulnerable individuals, families and communities, as well as small businesses, as they cope with the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contributions are focused on nonprofits addressing food insecurity, minority- and women-owned small businesses, general community relief, utility bill assistance and youth programming.

PG&E's continuing support for the customers and communities it serves builds on the $1 million in funding provided to nonprofits supporting COVID-19 relief in 2020 from PG&E and The PG&E Corporation Foundation. These charitable contributions are shareholder-funded, not funded by PG&E customers.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news.

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