While coming up with its playbook, BOMA has been holding regular calls with Philadelphia’s Health Department, Licenses & Inspections, Office of Emergency Management and other agencies as well as tenants and landlords to get input and to have everyone on the same page as the city begins to reopen.

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As restaurants and hotels began temporarily closing and resorting to wide-spread layoffs because of the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on business, Ed Grose’s mind turned to all the food that would be wasted as a result.

The executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association knew the amount of wasted eats from canceled events at the Pennsylvania Convention Center alone was cause for concern. His first thought was to start a food pantry that would re-home the food and provide laid off hotel workers with much-needed groceries.

But as the virus relentlessly ramped up, city officials responded with stricter self-isolation measures and Grose didn’t want to risk exposing volunteers and shoppers to the illness.

Instead, Grose’s organization launched the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association COVID-19 Hospitality Workers Relief Fund with the goal of raising enough funds to supply every laid off hotel employee in the city with a $100 gift certificate for groceries. He estimates the association will need 5,400 gift cards to do that, setting the fundraising goal at $540,000.

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