(updated 4/22/20) — Hundreds of Central Wisconsin bar, restaurant and small business employees are unemployed or underemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown. Now there’s a movement to help; virtual tip jars have been created for the Wausau, Stevens Point and Marshfield areas. These are open-source, community-driven websites that allow friends, neighbors and customers to support service workers with a tip to their Venmo or PayPal accounts.
To date, more than 300 of our neighbors in the service industry has signed up on on one of the three Central Wisconsin Tip Jars created by Compass Properties. Literally thousands more have signed up on virtual tip jars here in Wisconsin and throughout the country. Madison, Wisconsin resident Preston H. Austin and his friend Philip Crawford created tipyourserver.org and more than 2,000 Madison-area servers have signed up. The website has now become a portal listing other community tip jar programs.
Another project supporting people who rely on tips is Tip Jar Project created by the Schierl Brothers Northern Oasis Spirits. According to the website, The #TipJarProject is all about encouraging one another to support any and all tipped employees that have been impacted by COVID-19 and Safer at Home.
Giving a virtual tip to service workers is one of the many small ways we can make a difference, help our neighbors in need and give them assurance that we’ll get through this together. Check out the links below to either give a tip or sign up to get virtual tips if you’re a server.
- Wausau Virtual Tip Jar
- Stevens Point Virtual Tip Jar
- Marshfield Virtual Tip Jar
- Madison Virtual Tip Jar
- Tip Jar Project