SHEPHERD — Starting this week, the Red Rooster Bar in Shepherd will be donating a portion of their proceeds from weekly specials to Shepherd Schools to help students and families in need.
Angel Viren and her husband have owned the bar, located at 5429 Carey Ave, for five years and wanted to give back to their community.
“We’ve just been kind of building our kitchen, because we didn’t have very many food resources out here when we first bought the bar,” Viren said.
For the last couple of years, the bar has offered free delivery to teachers at Shepherd Schools and donated 10% of the proceeds from teacher's lunch orders back to the school. But this year, Viren wanted to open it up to the public.
“Times are a little tough right now, but no kid should ever go hungry,” Viren said.
The bar will offer a weekly "Mustang Special", a new item not usually on the menu, and a portion of the proceeds from each special that is ordered will be taken to the schools to clear out negative lunch balances. The special will be offered for lunch and dinner.
“We really love our community. We want to give back to it. I have a son who goes to the school, so I’m always trying to figure out ways that we can help the school and give back to the school. But the other thing too is I was a hungry child,” Viren said. “I know what it’s like to sit in class and just think about being hungry. And not knowing if you’re going to be able to eat that day.”
Shepherd sixth-grader Caleb Janich said he experienced a few times without money in his lunch account last year and is happy to hear that someone is helping out the students and their families.
“It will just help with the rest of their day because for me it was pretty rough not eating,” Janich said.
Viren said they had already raised $70 on Saturday, which will be added to the total from this week and donated back to the schools.
“In the long run, what I would hope to do is to not only pay off the negative balances but to create maybe a scholarship fund so that kids can get positive balances,” Viren said.
