LEE INITIATIVE INC

¬We started The LEE Initiative in Louisville, KY in 2018 after we saw a need for a more diverse, compassionate, sustainable, and equitable restaurant industry. We wanted to redefine what it means to give back to our local community based on our research, our experiences and most of all, our instincts. We are in the business of hospitality, helping people, and solving problems. We put the needs of our guests first. So why should it be any different when we approach the complex social issues that arise in the restaurant industry?

WOMEN CULINARY AND SPIRITS PROGRAM: The Women Culinary and Spirits Program creates a path to leadership for women in the food and beverage industry through mentorship, training, and continuing education opportunities. The goal of this program is to elevate more women into leadership positions within the industry with the mindset that doing so brings more equity and diversity to the industry. Each year, we select mentees to complete a six-month program which includes externships, seminars, and more. Mentees are experienced professionals in the early-to-mid stages of their food and beverage careers and are ready to take the next steps towards becoming industry leaders.

SOUTHERN RESTAURANTS FOR RACIAL JUSTICE: We are honored to work with the Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, a coalition of bakers, Chefs, makers and restaurant owners joined together to do the work to benefit Black communities, to provide grants to Black-owned businesses across the country. Through generous support from the community and our partners at HEINZ, we’ve awarded over $2 million in grants to 137 Black-owned food businesses in 2021 and 2022. With generous support from Square, we also offered continuing education seminars to grantees featuring food-industry veterans, including topics such as commercial leases, small business accounting, and employee training and retention. We also worked with our partners to create The Black Kitchen Podcast, an award-winning podcast series in its second year. Our collective intent is to ensure financial support and other resources to sustain long-term business health and success. Because this is about more than saving restaurants; it’s about preserving Black culinary culture today and into the future.

CULINARY EDUCATION PROGRAM: Through our work with McAtee Community Training Kitchen and the culinary arts programs at Louisville-area high schools, we have identified a need for increased, in-depth culinary education and training in our home city. In the summer of 2022, we launched The LEE Initiative’s Culinary Education Program - a program that addresses gaps in job training and preparedness for high school students and young people in our community. We strongly believe that more training and education will create more opportunities for employment. In 2022, we awarded a full scholarship, including tuition, enrollment fees and a book stipend, to a student enrolling in the Culinary Arts Associate’s degree program at Sullivan University in Louisville, Kentucky. This year’s scholarship is in the name of Chef David McAtee, a beloved chef and community member who was killed by the National Guard in 2020.We also continue our work with the culinary arts programs at local high schools, creating $5000 credits for these programs at Iroquois, Moore, and Western High Schools to buy ingredients and much-needed supplies to supplement existing curriculum. The grants empower faculty in these schools to run meaningful programs, giving students a rich and rewarding education with hands-on experience to best prepare them for jobs and careers in the food, beverage, and hospitality industry.

RESTAURANT WORKERS RELIEF PROGRAM: Through our Restaurant Workers Relief Program, The LEE Initiative empowers our vital locally-owned restaurants to serve their communities, funding their services and directly benefiting their employees as they in turn do what they do best: feed those in need. In March of 2020, as the restaurant industry faced unprecedented challenges, The LEE Initiative leaped into action–with the support of our partners in good, we turned one restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, into a relief center for out of work industry employees. We fed 300 people that night and, by the end of 2020, we served more than one million meals, across dozens of cities and nearly 20 states. We empowered our partner restaurants to hire back their staff to support these relief efforts by providing direct funds.
In 2021, a tornado devastated parts of Western Kentucky, and the following year a flood ravaged our neighbors in the Eastern part of the state. We funded local restaurants to provide over 100K free meals to communities in WKY, and invested over $350K in relief efforts to EKY, serving free meals and fully funding farmers markets to provide fresh produce to their communities. Realizing that we must always be prepared to jump in and help our communities, The LEE Initiative created and maintains a fund for future relief work.

RESEARCH RESTAURANT: Five years ago, we embarked on a journey when we formed The LEE Initiative to lead with kindness, help workers in need, promote diversity and equity, and believe that the impossible is possible. We are always looking ahead to learn, evolve, and be a resource for the people who make up our incredible independent restaurant industry. We are excited to soon announce the next chapter of The LEE Initiative – a think tank, research and non-profit restaurant based in Washington D.C. We will implement policies and practices that will demonstrate what the future of sustainable restaurants can look like, addressing issues as far ranging as labor practices, climate change, sustainability, innovation, and diversity. We will take a new approach to fine-dining – minimal plastic waste, no gas lines, and a woman led collaborative leadership model– while maintaining a level of high quality, to create luxury with social responsibility. The restaurant will partner with a university-backed research program, and our data/findings will be published open source for anyone to access and use. In doing so, we want to give back to our community by sharing data that is needed to ensure that we collectively progress in this industry. It is our love letter to the people who have worked so hard to make our restaurant culture the best it can be.