Tips from Bath Restaurant will Benefit Japan Disaster Victims

Most nights, the tips Steven Bushong makes at are spent on normal 26-year-old expenses: rent, entertainment, a formidable student loan debt. For Angela Staiger, 35, a  and University of Toledo graduate, there's  also the financial obligations of a growing  young family.    

Both Bushong and Staiger put those expenses on the back burner after a massive earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean Friday and caused a tsunami in Japan. News reports filled with  hundreds of thousands left dead, missing, injured or homeless, flashed on the bar's big screen while they worked. 

"The stories were so tragic," Staiger said, "people holding each other's hands were being swept apart by the water." 

Staiger and Bushong decided pretty much then and there that they wanted to do something to help.  The pair raised nearly $300 in one night. Using their personal and Gasoline Alley's  Facebook pages to get the word out, each announced that they would donate tips from last Sunday's shift to Mercy Corps. The Portland-based charity is providing tents, blankets and medicine to disaster victims.

At the end of Sunday, Staiger raised $85 -- 50 percent of her night's take. Bushong donated $207.

"After we posted on Facebook, my cousin wrote, "You're a really great person," Bushong said. "And I thought, 'I really should donate all my tips'."

"It's no big deal, really," he said. "Right now they need the money more than I do."

Staiger said she will  continue to donate 10 percent of her tips for the rest of the week.  Gasoline Alley co-owner Susan Johnson will kick in $100.