Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness Inc

Anyone who’s dined in a restaurant has experienced hospitality. From servers and bartenders to dishwashers and chefs, each person working in a restaurant gives their all to make guests feel welcome, cared for and nourished.

Our mission is to return the favor. To care for the people who take such good care of us. To provide a place for restaurant staff to feel supported, heard and appreciated. To facilitate gatherings where we can build meaningful connections with folks who “get it.” To lift each other up so we don’t lose anyone else to suicide, addiction or struggles surrounding mental health.

CHOW was created by individuals in the food and beverage industry to bridge the gap between personal and clinical care. Everyone in the food/beverage/hospitality industry needs community and wellness resources. For those in recovery, CHOW recognizes that long term recovery needs connection and CHOW provides opportunities for that connection.

This Giving Tuesday, you can help CHOW reach our 2024/2025 goals:

1. Reach 100 individual attendees for the 1st year of our Spanish language discussion meetings
2. Meet and outreach to 10,000+ food/beverage/hospitality workers across the US each year
3. Distribute harm reduction tools to 5000 food/beverage/ hospitality workers.  Especially targeting communities with less resources as well as businesses that are also music venues and high risk fast casual businesses. 
4. Provide harm reduction tool training and resources for management teams, helping teams to become more resilient and thrive.

CHOW's straightforward holistic approach to serving our peers in the hospitality/culinary industry addresses the significant challenges facing our community including: mental health, substance use, and addiction. Our industry has the highest rate of illicit drug use and ranks among the lowest in mental health. Through our peer support and brokering services, we connect individuals to the support they need. We provide culturally and vocationally specific peer support, education, prosocial events, and resources to create a thriving community in the food, beverage, and hospitality industry.

By helping CHOW reach our goals, you can be a part of the incredible, personal impact. By the end of 2025, CHOW’s plans to reach an additional 20,000 food/beverage/hospitality industry community members. We will continue to use our platform to provide harm reduction tools and education, while presenting social opportunities to create a healthier community.

We know what we’re doing works.  Our meetings have a 90% return rate and our education has gotten great feedback.  Based on that feedback, CHOW has been increasing the number of peer support hours to offer more peer support time, outreach and advocacy, sharing harm reduction tools, and increase the number of our peer support meetings.  These responsive measures help us build a community that will allow folks to have a place that they fit in during their recovery or lifestyle shift. At the same time, we ensure that our peer support specialists have continued education to offer the best peer support possible- and that they feel supported internally. 

Finally, the support raised from this campaign will help CHOW update our website. To support our Spanish speaking community members, we will be working with a web designer and Spanish language experts to offer complete translations of all materials and dedicated website content with culturally appropriate translations. We appreciate your support, helping CHOW reach our Giving Tuesday 2024 goal. You are welcome year round to volunteer with CHOW, partner on an in-person or virtual fundraiser, and help spread the word across social channels and communities about this important mission. From all of us, Thank you!