I-Drive dinner club opening food bank to help tourism workers
With thousands of tourism industry workers laid off, there's concern about how they will be able to feed themselves and their families.
But a Central Florida dinner club is reworking its business to help people in need.
Most nights the crowds come out to see “Elvis” and other performers at The Rock Dinner Show.
But with most of International Drive shut down, the Rock Dinner Show's home, The Forum, is now a food bank to help feed hotel and other tourism industry workers who have been laid off.
The Forum has 15,000 square feet of space, which workers hope to use for non-perishable food storage.
“We could sit at home and do nothing or we could come in here and try to make a difference and that's what we're doing,” The Forum’s Michael Beacham said. “We're taking the space and we're taking the location and a whole lot of heart and soul that our people have, to try to reach out and to create a community kitchen.”
The Rock Dinner Show’s "Prince" impersonator, Joey Colon, was stocking shelves with vegetables when WESH 2 News stopped by. His aim is to get everyone who can help to donate their time and goods to handle what they expect will be long daily lines of people.
“A lot of independents out here, a lot of their employees have been laid off, or no longer work in desperation wondering about their next paycheck. And even if they get right back to work, the few that get back to work, right away, it's going to take them awhile to get that first paycheck,” Colon said.
The Forum food bank is hoping to recruit chefs to prepare meals ready to eat for pickup.
The operation should be up and running, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily by the end of the week.