From the Office of Maplewood Mayor Frank McGehee:
Maplewood, NJ Mayor Frank McGehee announces the launch of the MAPSO Virtual Tip Jar. The digital platform facilitates direct-to-account “tipping” of local service employees via a simple spreadsheet of their personal PayPal, Cash App and Venmo banking apps through two websites: www.mapsotipjar.com and www.somatipjar.com.
The initiative, supported by Maplewood Village Alliance, District Manager Deb Yohannan and Springfield Avenue Partnership, Executive Director Nicole Wallace, is launching in Maplewood with plans to eventually include South Orange service employees.
Says McGehee, “We’ve all taken some financial hit, however, their incomes heavily rely upon tips, so this lockdown has left many of our service industry neighbors in an unfortunate state.”
“We wanted to make it easy to show our support of a community of workers that have always been ready to serve us. And, if participants want to contribute specifically to their favorite service worker – you can search by name or use the platform’s randomizer feature to contribute ‘tips’ to employees whose roles we don’t see, but are essential to keeping the business running.”
“I’m so proud that our town has a heritage of being a supportive community of neighbors who wish to help neighbors.” said Mayor McGehee. “The MAPSO Tip Jar program provides a simple way to extend direct support to service industry employees until our community is back and open for business.”
The philanthropic idea was inspired by the DC Virtual Tip Jar, and was spearheaded by Maplewood residents Susan Greeley and volunteer Chris Danuser. The team brought on Brian Castell, CEO of Bizzo.co who generously provided technology services and expertise.
