Hello beautiful people out there. I hope you are all staying healthy and staying sane, cooped up in your shelter-in-place.
I have a couple of important updates. The first is an update from change.org themselves. As of Tuesday, they communicated to me that an email had been sent out to all who gave them any money after signing the petition. Here is the email that you should have received (if you gave money to CHANGE.ORG) The links indeed work!
- "Dear Bob,
- Thanks to your support, Kristin’s petition asking the U.S. government to provide financial aid to beauty industry professionals has grown to over 1 million signatures. Last week, the president signed the CARES act which will provide the type of financial relief Kristin was demanding.
- Kristin knows this bill will help, but there’s still the looming question of how long stylists like her will be unable to work. Many need immediate financial support to avoid eviction and keep food on the table. That’s why Kristin partnered with the Professional Beauty Association to raise funds that will be dispersed to beauty industry professionals. You can read more about the fund here.
- Kristin is not alone in her quest to support beauty and salon professionals. Kelle’s petition is pressuring 13 beauty brands to contribute to a relief fund to provide financial support to stylists who are unable to work due to COVID-19.
- And it’s not just the beauty industry facing hardship. #SaveOurRestaurants petition was started by a coalition of restaurant chefs and their petition has grown to 350,000 signatures. Small businesses of all types are hard-hit by the pandemic sweeping our country, and coming to Change.org to support each other.
- Bob – When you chipped in to support Kristin’s petition, your contribution was put to use right away to help the petition gain more signatures. Contributions like yours help Kristin’s petition be seen by more potential supporters so it can keep growing. More signatures means more public pressure on Congress to respond.
- Kristin appreciates your financial support – and it’s helped her petition grow to more than 1 million signatures. However, if you'd like a refund, you can request one here..
- Learn more about how chipping in to promote petitions on Change.org works by visiting our FAQ page. The petitions that are promoted by people like you, go on to grow larger and influence more people. It’s one way we help petition starters like Kristin win their petitions. And we’re proud to say that every hour, a petition wins on Change.org.
- Thank you for supporting the issues you care about."
I want to declare our petition a success, a total victory. But developments over the last week or so show that the government may be moving toward a BAIL OUT for the restaurant industry. And I'm left feeling....well, left out. Where's OUR bail out? What about the all the revenue we produce for the economy every year? Our industry support a large sector of the job market, including supply store retail workers, mid-level district managers, marketing and advertising firms, and, let's not leave them out (although we all can agree they could be doing more to help us...) BIG PRODUCT CORPORATIONS. That's part of the GLOBAL economy, because I know some of you use European color lines.
So I want to shift our petition a little everyone. I want to GO AFTER a bail out, relief package SPECIFICALLY designed for us. And due to the overwhelming offer of help last time (more than 1,000 emails that I couldn't respond to!) I created an email account SPECIFICALLY for contacting me UNITINGBEAUTY@GMAIL.COM
I have a couple of folks who I am reaching out to so we can really organize our new movement forward. If you would like to help (AND please don't be offended if it takes me a few days to get back to you; remember, I'm only one person with a toddler on a couch in Michigan) email me and I will give you a volunteer job!