Saluté restaurant owner donates $13,000 to help Hurricane Harvey victims
on September 21, 2017
Menbere Aklilu, owner of Richmond’s Salute E Vita Ristorante, donated more than $13,000 to victims of Hurricane Harvey last week.
Aklilu and her restaurant staff presented a check to Mayor Tom Butt on September 11, which will be given to the American Red Cross’ Hurricane Harvey Relief Efforts to help victims recover. The check contains the total sales on Friday, September 8, and parts of servers’ tips.
“It’s her way of giving back to the American people for everything this country has done for her,” said Jamie Dooley, a supervisor at Salute E Vita who works closely with Aklilu on philanthropy projects and events.
Aklilu was born in Ethiopia and raised in Italy, but America has given her so many opportunities, said Dooley. “She knew what it’s like to be without a home and to live in a shelter with no possession at all, and she needed to do something to help these people.”
The gift was made in names of Richmond community. “The donation was Menbe’s decision, but clearly the community supported her,” Butt said.
Richmond Confidential welcomes comments from our readers, but we ask users to keep all discussion civil and on-topic. Comments post automatically without review from our staff, but we reserve the right to delete material that is libelous, a personal attack, or spam. We request that commenters consistently use the same login name. Comments from the same user posted under multiple aliases may be deleted. Richmond Confidential assumes no liability for comments posted to the site and no endorsement is implied; commenters are solely responsible for their own content.
Richmond Confidential
Richmond Confidential is an online news service produced by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism for, and about, the people of Richmond, California. Our goal is to produce professional and engaging journalism that is useful for the citizens of the city.
Please send news tips to richconstaff@gmail.com.
