A column collapse at Red Ginger in downtown Traverse City May 30 resulted in the evacuation of diners and the ongoing closure of the restaurant during its busiest time of year.

Now, amid the bustle of construction and engineering crews working toward a targeted mid-July reopening, owners Pam and Dan Marsh are getting their staff back to work – using a unique program designed to thank a community they say has been “overwhelmingly supportive” through their crisis.

Employees were given the OK to reenter Red Ginger last week and have since been assisting with cleaning, packing and moving furniture as renovations take place in the building. But the restaurant, which Pam says has applied insurance funds from a loss of business income policy toward keeping staff on payroll, has found another way to occupy employees: lending them out to local non-profit organizations.

“Dan and I talked about how important it was to maintain our culture and give our team a purpose other than waiting for us to reopen,” Pam says. “We decided to reach out to the community and see if there were nonprofits who could use workers to assist them while we were down.”

As part of the program, Red Ginger employees will soon join Habitat for Humanity's affordable housing construction site at the Depot Neighborhood, as well as assist PEACE Ranch with its children's summer camp program. The restaurant's largest outreach effort, however, is a planned “pop-up dinner” at Black Star Farms next Thursday, June 26, featuring Red Ginger staff working in partnership with Goodwill Northern Michigan's Mi Fresh Start.

Brandon Seng, director of food programs at Goodwill, says Mi Fresh Start trainees – approximately 30 unemployed or underemployed individuals annually who learn hospitality industry skills through hands-on training and the operation of a Goodwill-owned food truck – typically receive “a lot of back-of-the-house training.” But at the pop-up dinner event, which will feature a plated farm-to-table menu designed by Dan and his team of Red Ginger chefs, trainees will have a chance to learn both sides of the business from more experienced counterparts.

“On Wednesday, we'll be prepping everything in our kitchen with Chef Dan and his team, who will be mentoring our trainees,” says Seng. “Then Thursday, the trainees will move to the front of the house, working with Red Ginger's lead servers to serve up this beautiful dinner. To give our people – many of whom have experienced homelessness or addiction – a chance to work with the superstars of the industry and learn from them is so exciting...it's an incredible opportunity.”

Tickets for the 6pm event are $50 and are limited to 100, with an optional $25 wine pairing offered by Black Star Farms. (For reservations, call Mi Fresh Start at 231-944-5844.) Proceeds from the event will benefit Mi Fresh Start, with gratuities going to the Red Ginger wait staff.

As for the actual restaurant, Pam says “daily baby steps” – including the recent replacement of the collapsed column (now reinforced with steel), drywall repairs and new carpet – are inching Red Ginger closer to a grand reopening she hopes could come as soon as the second week in July. Multiple engineers, including a third-party firm the Marshes hired to represent them in investigating the cause of the collapse, are still working on pinpointing the source, but “nothing significant” has come of that yet, says Pam.

The owner acknowledges being closed during the crucial summer season “has been difficult” financially for the restaurant. But long-term, Pam believes Red Ginger will remain sustainable. “I believe we can recover from it,” she says, noting that other TC restaurant owners have assisted them in refrigerating goods and offering to host fundraisers or even temporarily hire staff. “We've had out-of-town guests tell us they want to make a trip back just to support us. The whole community has been unbelievable. We feel confident in reopening."