Following last week’s massive explosion that destroyed Beirut, a GoFundMe campaign has been launched for Lebanese capital Le Chef’s restaurant.
The target was modest: $ 13,000 to destroy windows, electrical wiring and kitchen appliances by August 4th.
When the donations started rolling in – usually $ 10, $ 25, $ 50 – one stood out. A generous donor reported as “Russell Crowe” had sent $ 5,000.
Later on Tuesday, journalist Richard Hall, one of the organizers of the lender, made the name.
A few hours later, Russell Crowe – Oscar-winning star of Gladiator, LA Confidential, and A Beautiful Mind – replied: “On behalf of Anthony Bourdain. I thought he probably would have done this if he was still running. I wish you and Le Chef the best and hope that things can be put back together soon. ”
Bourdain, who died by suicide in 2018, first presented Beirut on his Travel Channel show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations in 2006. Le Chef was the first restaurant he visited.
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‘This place felt a bit familiar,’ Bourdain said in the episode, ‘Like a New York dinner … It was that fun mix of old school, new school, neighborhood. Really good food. Very traditional. ”
That meal would be one of the only Bourdains actually filmed on the trip. In the middle of production, the war broke out in July 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah. Beirut was heavily bombed, and Bourdain and his crew were eventually evacuated by the U.S. Marines, along with other foreigners captured in the city.
Another fundraiser organizer, Amanda Bailly, told NBC News that at first she thought it was “a joke and that someone we knew thought it would be a funny way to give anonymously.”
The independent filmmaker added that it was ‘so generative’ to donate from the actor.
“It shows that Lebanese hospitality has made an impression on people around the world who are now eager to support Lebanon,” said Bailly, 32.
Crowe’s generosity comes as Beirut struggles to get back on its feet after last Tuesday’s explosion ripped through the city.
Le Chef is an establishment near Gemmayze since 1967, and is a simple restaurant known for its homestyle cooking and the thriving “Welcome!” of its owner, Charbel Bassil.
The country was already struggling with an economic crisis before the explosion. With government services, almost no existing place, Lebanese generosity and resilience, strengthened in 15 years of civil war in the 1970s and 80s, took their place.
Both neighbors and strangers came together to transport the injured to hospitals, and in the aftermath wipe out the rubble and begin the slow process of reconstruction.
Numerous GoFundMe campaigns and donation drives for NGOs have been launched. They have raised millions of dollars for everyone, from first responders to individual families to museums and restaurants.
Bourdain looked back on Beirut in an interview for the Emmy Awards years after that first, mis-fated trip, “It got us all thinking about a lot of things, you know, what’s important in life … it was a great , everything-changed-kind-of-thing. ”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Dairy Prevention Helpline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
