MPTF To Host Food Drive; Nears $1M In Financial Assistance Payouts During Strikes

deadline.com:

The Motion Picture & Television Fund will host a food drive on August 24 to help out industry members effected by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Volunteers are being provided by IATSE and Teamsters Local 399, with donations from the Matthew 25: Ministries. MPTF president and CEO Bob Beitcher says the charity has been “flooded with calls” since the Writers Guild went on strike on May 2 and SAG-AFTRA on July 14. “MPTF is closing in on total financial assistance during the work stoppage of $1 million,” he said. “In the past 30 days alone, we’ve received more than 4,500 calls for help with financial assistance.

To put that into perspective, in a typical month, pre-strike, we would receive 200 calls for assistance.  “Many are contacting us as well with other psycho-social issues or are identifying these issues in intake/case management conversations with our social workers.

A big shout-out here to the MPTF social workers who have been absolutely flooded with these calls for assistance and have carried on, some of them seven days a week, to case manage their existing high acuity clients along with the difficult intake process to help industry members with the required paperwork and interact with their own high acuity needs.