A Georgia bar owner has taken advantage of a customer tradition in order to pay her now-unemployed staff during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
According to CNN , Jennifer Knox, the owner of The Sand Bar in Tybee Island, recently realized she had tons of extra cash just lying around — or rather, stapled to the walls of her business.
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Like many others like it, The Sand Bar was forced to close its doors to customers amid the outbreak, and has been struggling to pay its staff ever since.
Knox, who worked as a bartender at the joint for seven years before taking ownership, told CNN that March is usually the start of their busy season. However, this year was different.
With her business now on hold, Knox said she’s been trying to figure out a way to keep providing her unemployed staff with paychecks while keeping her own head above water.
As it turns out, all she had to do was look around her to find a solution.
For 15 years, customers have been writing on dollar bills and stapling them inside the bar, leaving the joint’s walls and ceilings literally covered in cash.
“We were sitting there doors locked and I’m like ‘oh my gosh, there’s money on the walls and we have time on our hands’,” Knox recalled. “‘We gotta get this money down.'”
For the next three and a half days, five volunteers tediously removed every single bill from inside the bar.
Knox even posted a photo on Facebook , showing one of the volunteers balancing on a ladder while carefully plucking bills from the ceiling.
“The Sand Bar is going to have a fresh new look, while giving back at the same time,” she wrote. “We are taking down the dollar bills!! And donating all the money to our bartenders and musicians that need it!”
Some of the bills had dozens of staples in them; some were from different countries spanning the entire globe.
After the cash was collected, cleaned, and counted, Knox said the total came to $3,174 — not bad for simply peeling off wall decor.
Once word of Knox’s efforts got out, people in the community came forward to help support The Sand Bar’s staff as well.
With the generous donations added, Knox was able to doll out $4,104 in total, amounting to about $600 for each of her four bartenders and two musicians.
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“I can’t just sit here and do nothing,” she said of her decision to strip the bar of its iconic decor. “I’ll do what I can for my people.”
Now that The Sand Bar’s walls are empty of their weathered bills, Knox says she’s not sure if they’ll continue the stapling tradition once they reopen.
She also said the walls will be painted to replace the missing cash, something which customers will be able to enjoy once they’re able to open again.
In the meantime, Knox will continue to collect donations in order to keep her staff paid during these difficult times.
“We all look out for each other,” she said. “We are all in this together.”
h/t: CNN
