A Georgia bar owner removed $3,700 from walls to give her employees

The hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic, as bars and restaurants across the country have been forced to close their doors. One bar owner in Tybee Island, Georgia, however, found a creative way to provide her now-unemployed staff with some compensation.

Over the years, patrons of The Sand Bar have stapled dollar bills to its walls. Owner Jennifer Knox recently decided to take them all down, resulting in a windfall of $3,714. Fans of the bar, learning of Knox’s generous act, began donating money to add to her pile of dollar bills. The donations came to $390, resulting in a total of $4,104, which enabled Knox to pay her four bartenders and two musicians $600 each.

Not only was she able to help out her staff during this difficult time, but removing all the dollar bills also resulted in a new, fresh look for the bar. Knox took to Facebook to share photos of the newly bare walls and ceiling:

“Heyyyyyy!!!! So we did a thing!!” reads the post accompanying the photo. “So proud of my volunteers, and I love my Sand Bar Team! We will get through this!!”

It took Knox and volunteers three days to remove all the bills. This Facebook photo shows what it looked liked midway through their work:

“We literally had money on the walls and time on our hands,” Knox told local news station WTOC. “There was not a more perfect time to give back to my people.”

Customers wrote messages on the cash to commemorate birthdays and anniversaries or simply signed their names or wrote short messages.

When employee Lydia Clark heard she’d be receiving $600 from Knox’s project, she was overwhelmed with gratitude.

“Oh my God!” she told the news station. “That will pay my rent!”

What an awesome gesture! Here’s hoping that the Sand Bar can reopen soon and begin racking up dollar bills on its walls all over again.