A town in West Virginia held candlelight vigil for a local Hooters facing closure.
As reported by UPI, the restaurant, located in Kanawha City, a neighborhood in Charleston, West Virginia, has been closed since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The town has since announced plans to demolish the establishment to make way for a gas station.
"I started out coming in to get a job and it became so much more because I met so many life long friends and my co-workers," Danielle Hughart, a former employee who attended the vigil, told WCHS-TV.
According to one of the event's organizers, the charity will be given to a local family, whose daughter is currently battling a disease.
"One of our close friend's daughters, she was just diagnosed with a very, very rare disease and it's very serious. If she don't get help then she's not going to be with us much longer," Leo Browning, an organizer for the fundraiser, said.
Browning continued by reflecting on driving past the shuttered Hooters during COVID.
“Two, three times a week, you drive through there, you see that closed sign and you’re like, ‘Man I hope somebody really pulls through and opens that back up’,” he explained.
The family plans to use the funds to travel to California for treatment.
