CDAIDE STORIES
GABE CRUZ
Local Restaurant Manager
This summer, I had a restaurant employee who was homeless with a small child. I’ve been stuck in my car before, and as a parent I can’t imagine doing that with a child. When I saw his situation, I immediately thought of how many people CDAIDE has helped and I reached out.
CDAIDE helped him by mentorship, which is positive for him because he was a little bit lost and needed someone to talk to, to help get his life a little more straight. Also, CDAIDE assisted with finding him new housing, rent, and car repair. That helped me because I was able to keep an employee who was a fantastic person, just going through a hard time. When he got more stable, he was more stable in his job, and that really helped keep our restaurant on track.
I feel that we all dine out, we all enjoy the comforts of going out for a nice meal without worrying about money. And there are people in food service working super hard, long hours, who do have to worry about money and things like which bills to pay, and there’s a lot of stress that it puts on them. I think it’s our duty as fellow humans to look at the situation others are in and help out where we can, to give back to the people who give to us.