On Monday, widely popular food influencer and philanthropist Keith Lee partnered with the Salvation Army and the city of Gary for a large-scale relief effort in northwest Indiana, where residents have been without power for two grueling weeks following historic weather.
Gary residents have been in survival mode after severe storms with winds of up to 100 mph and a derecho swept through the area on Aug. 11, leaving behind uprooted sidewalks, streetlights out of service, snapped trees and debris scattered across the city.
Lee, a Detroit native who lives in Texas, rose to prominence for his simple, yet effective food reviews. He first announced the partnership in a social media video on Friday. He explained that his team was already planning a food tour and festival when he learned about the storms and how families in the historically underprivileged community had been in a near-blackout for almost two weeks.
“The second this happened, everything changed — I had a conversation with my wife, I called my sister, and we completely switched course,” Lee told the Tribune on Monday, while helping volunteers hand out kits. “How were we going to do a food festival in the Midwest while Gary has no power and nobody was talking about it?”
With 17 million TikTok followers and a few million on Instagram, Lee’s influence was unmistakable on site.
“Keith Lee! Oh, my God!” a woman screamed out of her car, while spotting him a few yards away.
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Lee regularly plans multicity tours to sample local cuisine. His spotlight on local restaurants often ignites massive exposure for local businesses, which frequently see a surge in customers and social media fame after his food reviews that he typically films from his car.
In Chicago, Lee most recently reviewed Cleo’s, an American Southern spot best known for its Creole-spiced fried fish and honey buttered 24-Karat Gold muffins. The business went viral after Lee rated his order a perfect 10 out of 10, twice. The “Keith Lee effect” also touched Chicago’s Tacotlán after he said the Mexican restaurant has the best quesabirria tacos in the city.
In Gary on Monday, residents could either walk up to a Salvation Army truck at one end of the field at Roosevelt High School, or join the drive-up line to receive one of 2,000 relief kits that included core cleaning supplies like mops, brooms and brushes, as well as liquid disinfectants, household cleaners, work gloves, N95 masks and extra-thick trash bags. Volunteers also handed out 1,000 sandwiches, chips and drinks.
Lee donated around $15,000 toward relief aid for Gary residents, while Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton added another $15,000.
Beyond the disaster kits, the money also went to the many food trucks set up in the parking lot of Roosevelt High School, which was transformed into a free festival with a live DJ and dozens of food booths.
“What makes the people in the Midwest so special is that they can come out and they can still have a smile on their face no matter what turmoil or trials and tribulations they’re going through at home,” Lee said. “If you came here and you had no idea what was going on, you would just think that we are having a backyard boogie.”
Sylvia Martin, the director of planning and zoning for the city of Gary, who has been heavily involved in local relief efforts following the storm, said the lineup of food vendors, community groups and food trucks was organized in just a few days. Monday’s event was unique because it functioned as both an essential relief operation and a joyful community gathering, she noted.
“It was the community that pulled itself together,” Martin said on Monday, while helping on the Salvation Army front. “We have a mayor that’s very transformative and he puts that energy out there, and we get it back tenfold. All of this is the community’s doing … we coordinated the location because of city-owned property, but everything else is the power of the people.”
Across the field from the Salvation Army’s giveaway, Gary residents waited in a winding but fast-moving line toward the many tents set up by local restaurants and businesses that were serving families for free.
On the grill outside her tent, Marshawna Kendrick, founder of the pop-up Pineapple Paradise, was cooking up a colorful mix of chicken, veggies, pineapple chunks and rice to serve inside a hollowed-out half pineapple.
“We’re also giving out hot dogs because the pineapple bowls can be pretty pricey,” she said.
Kendrick only found out about the event a day before and was already prepping for the upcoming Jackson Street Block Party in honor of Gary native Michael Jackson’s birthday.
“Then when I heard about this, I was like ‘I might as well just give it out instead,’” she said. “It was absolutely necessary for me to help where I can.”
Home-based business owners like baker Cami Fuller showed up with banana pudding cookies, local nonprofits like We Are The Village handed out toilet paper rolls and burritos, Nothing Bundt Cakes brought mini bundts, ice cream trucks were free and brick-and-mortar restaurants like Street Tacos NWI served grilled chicken tacos despite the family restaurant reopening only a couple of days ago after their power was restored.
While power has steadily returned across northwest Indiana, Gary has remained one of the hardest-hit areas. More than 7,000 buildings or homes were still without power as of Monday afternoon, according to Gary city officials.
Christine Jones, among other local residents, pointed out that neighboring communities with smaller Black populations had their electricity restored much sooner. The issue is a recurring environmental crisis in historically underserved communities across the country, in which Black communities have had to absorb the pitfalls of infrastructure failures, she said.
“Unfortunately, I do think this is a racial issue — my daughter works in Crown Point and they got their lights on before we did,” Jones said.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Black residents make up 76% of the population in Gary.
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Local power supplier NIPSCO estimates that power in Gary will be substantially restored by Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the storms. Approximately 300 distribution poles and 44 transmission poles required complete repair or rebuilding, the company said in a statement.
Jones, a 49-year-old lifelong “Garyite,” was one of the residents whose power was restored Sunday night, having spent the last two weeks in “full survival mode.”
“It has been hell on earth,” Jones said, basking in the shade of a tree while her family got food from the various vendors. “I was blessed enough to have candles and matches, but the days kept going, and then I started running out of candles and matches.”
Going to the store to get more candles or a flashlight wasn’t so easy either, she noted. Many area stores were closed because they too lacked power, so residents had to travel to neighboring cities and towns for essentials. But the errands had to be done in the daylight, Jones added, otherwise “it’s driving in pitch-black darkness.”
“If you’re out looking for food and gas, either you’re driving far west, pushing toward Hammond or Chicago, or you’re going far east, trying to hit Michigan City for some real civilization,” she explained. “But when you got to the stores, everything was gone … raided, and some people ran out of gas waiting in line to get gas.”
The biggest hurdle for Jones, whose children range in age from school-aged to adults, has been having enough to eat every day.
“We’re blessed to have a gas stove, but our refrigerator and freezer were fully stocked before the power went out — we had to throw it all away,” Jones said, who added that they ran out of water in less than two days. “It’s not like the power went out for a day … It has been 13 days.”
While Jones joked that it was like living in the Stone Age, she’s grateful to the relief efforts that have made a world of difference for the community.
Martin, Gary’s planning and zoning director, said the city is running a day shelter out of YWCA Northwest Indiana, where more than 400 residents have been coming in each day to take hot showers, charge their phones and pick up something to eat.
The city organizers and volunteers assisting on Monday faced the exact same challenges as the rest of the neighborhood, noted Dora Rogers, a Gary resident of 50 years who was helping direct the hundreds of people in the drive-by line and showing others the way to the music and food.
She has been without electricity in her home for about 14 days and has no hot water.
Rogers, a fan of Lee, said she’s thankful to the 29-year-old social media star for highlighting Gary and bringing attention to the community during this critical time.
“Watching his videos got me through COVID, during the Paw Patrol days,” Rogers laughed, referring to when Lee first became famous on TikTok for doing his calm and honest food reviews while sitting comfortably in his daughter’s small Paw Patrol camping chair. “He’s always been a man of his word, and he’s putting Gary on the map right now … all over social media, people are talking about Gary now.”
Rogers hopes her lights turn back on soon so she can restock her fridge and take a warm shower. And hopefully, the giant tree branches causing chaos on Harrison Street will soon be cleaned up too, she said.
“I’m blessed that I’m able to provide for myself … others have it way worse, but what I have found is that this city has a hell of a backbone,” Rogers said. “The magnitude of this storm and this destruction was unprecedented … but we came together and if this is what it took to bring us here, I’ll take it.”