Chamber to businesses: Welcome everyone
Ten local restaurants received a total of $55,000 in grants this week from Grubhub through a program coordinated by the LGBT Chamber of Commerce 10 chamber restaurants received grants from Grubhub; 9 students given scholarships DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writertaffet@dallasvoice.com The North Texas LGBT Chamber of Commerce has had a busy week, handing out scholarships to students and granting funds to restaurants as well as reintroducing a non-discrimination program called Welcome Everyone.
The Welcome Everyone program was first launched in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Obergefell decision on marriage equality, said Chamber President and CEO Tony Vedda. “We started this so people would have some confidence that when they were planning their wedding, they’d could identify vendors and businesses that welcomed their patronage,” he explained.
The chamber launched the Welcome Everyone — or WE — program with stickers that merchants could place on their doors. They initially got hundreds of requests for door stickers — and not just locally, but from merchants in 20 states and even from several other countries.
While most couples could feel confident in larger cities where they could easily patronize chamber members, Vedda said the program was particularly important for smaller communities.
