Last year, national hospitality nonprofit Southern Smoke Foundation granted more than $125,000 in hurricane recovery aid to Sarasota and Manatee County hospitality workers. Now the foundation is back with a mental health pilot program called “Behind You,” in partnership with the Melbourne-based Florida Institute of Technology.

Lindsey Brown, Southern Smoke Foundation's executive director, says Behind You is the first mental health program of its kind, designed by food and beverage professionals for food and beverage professionals. The number of hospitality workers reporting mental health issues has risen from 56 percent in 2018 to 74 percent in 2024. Sixty percent have reported that their work-life balance is the primary issue. With Behind You, Florida applicants can now receive 20 complimentary therapy sessions through the Florida Institute of Technology.

“We partner with universities that have psychology clinics,” says Brown. “We provide a grant to Florida Institute of Technology, and in exchange for that grant, the university provides a certain slots to our food and beverage referrals, who in turn, receive 20 no-cost virtual sessions.”

“Once [workers] are done with our program, they have the opportunity to move into sliding scale sessions,” she continues. “It's based on income, but the sessions can't be more than $40 or $50 a session. Most of the time it's closer to $20 or $25. [a session].”

The program has already shown success in 12 other states, providing nearly 8,000 no-cost counseling sessions to food and beverage workers since its inception. Farmers, dishwashers, servers, chefs, distillery workers, fry cooks and others working in the restaurant industry can take advantage of the program, provided they have six months of current food and beverage employment at 30 hours per week.

Southern Smoke is based in Houston, Texas, and was launched in 2015 by James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd to help raise funds for his restaurant's sommelier, Antonio Gianola, after Gianola was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. As the organization has grown, it's evolved to aid food and beverage workers experiencing financial crises. To date, the foundation has distributed more than $14.5 million directly to people in the food and beverage industry. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it distributed nearly $4 million to displaced workers. In Florida, Southern Smoke has distributed $1.6 million since 2017.

“Covid-19 exposed a lot of cracks in our industry, and all these years later, a lot of them have not been fixed,” Brown says. “We find that once people in a local community take advantage of any of our resources, we see a huge increase in applications. When people realize this is the real deal and there is therapy available, word spreads.”

Food and beverage workers who want to take advantage of the Behind You program can apply on the organization’s website here. From there, Southern Smoke will verify employment and share the information with Florida Institute of Technology, which will match employees with a clinician and begin the 20-session program. For more information about the program, click here. To apply, click here.