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The 2021 Adrian Awards are now open! Take some inspiration from one of last year’s honorees –VisitLEX. Submit your entry for the 2021 Adrian Awards by Dec. 20, 2021.
For the 2020 Adrian Awards program, HSMAI introduced four new focus categories to recognize the resilience that the industry demonstrated in response to COVID: corporate social responsibility, crisis communications and management, recovery strategies, and talent and leadership development. In Hospitality Successes During the Pandemic Year, a new HSMAI Special Report, we profile all of the Best Practice Gold winners in these four categories — including VisitLEX, which was honored for Corporate Social Responsibility.
BACKGROUND: At the start of the pandemic, VisitLEX partnered with FoodChain, Keeneland Racecourse, and the E.E. Murry Family Foundation to create Nourish Lexington, which addressed two problems: communitywide food insecurity and hospitality industry job losses. Nourish Lexington’s dual goals were to provide meals to people in Central Kentucky needing immediate access to food — and to provide jobs for displaced restaurant workers, who were hired to prepare and deliver the meals. VisitLEX donated $10,000 to kickstart the Nourish Lexington fund and leveraged partnerships with local restaurants to promote the program among displaced hospitality workers and create distribution points. Keeneland donated more than 1,500 pounds of food, which encouraged many Lexington restaurants to donate excess product, and also contributed 100 percent of proceeds from
RESULTS: Nourish Lexington produced and distributed 200,000 meals to area hospitality workers, families in need, and seniors, and 68,103 meals for schoolchildren. More than $525,000 went back into the local food economy, which helped keep restaurant workers employed. Thanks to FoodChain, $86,259 went directly to food service workers displaced from their jobs.