In light of the City of Jackson's recent mandate requiring people to wear masks in public, Mangia Bene restaurant group, which operates BRAVO! Italian Restaurant and Bar, Sal and Mookie's and Broad Street Baking Company, recently announced its own set of regulations and changes for its restaurants.

In a release, the restaurant group asks that customers wear a mask when coming in and wait until they are seated to remove it. Customers should also put on their mask if they need to leave the table and when they leave the restaurant.

Mangia Bene is also implementing "I BRING" and "I TAKE" shirts for all service staff at each restaurant. Staff members who wait on customers and bring food will wear the BRING shirts, will never touch something a guest has touched or used and will only bring new items such as food, drink and silverware.

Staff wearing TAKE shirts will remove all used items such as plastic straw wrappers, plates and cups. They will never hand customers anything and will only take things away as a way to limit potential cross-contamination among staff and customers.

Mangia Bene is also only seating customers in groups of up to six at a table with six feet between tables. For more information, call 601-982-4443 or visit mangiabene-catering.com.

LGBTQ Fund of Mississippi Awards Grants to 15 Community Organizations

The LGBTQ Fund of Mississippi, a field of interest fund at The Community Foundation for Mississippi, recently awarded its first round of grant funding totaling $112,709 to 15 organizations that work to improve the quality of life for LGBTQ+ Mississippians.

The 12-month grants range from $3,000 to $15,000. The organizations and programs funded by the first round of grants are Campaign for Southern Equality, the ACLU-Transgender Education and Advocacy Program, MSU Holmes Cultural Diversity – LGBTQ Resilience, UMMC: TEAM Clinic - Mental Health post-Gender Affirming Treatment, Delta State University: Safe Space Planning Grant, Freedom Summer Collegiate: Collegiate Seminar in LGBTQ Studies, Fondren Presbyterian Church: Gender and Sexual Diversity Interfaith Collaborative, Grace Christian Counseling: LGBTQ Tele-Health & Community Outreach, Mississippi Museum of Art: Highlighting LGBTQ Artists, Grace House: Capital City Pride Project, Love Me Unlimited 4 Life: Statewide Trans Women Advisory Board, Youth Improvement Services: Housing for Homeless Youth, My Brother’s Keeper: UNITY Mentorship: Trans Development, the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition: Queer Youth Organizing and Invisible Histories Project: Archiving Mississippi’s Queer History.

For information or to make tax-deductible gifts to the LGBTQ Fund of Mississippi, visit the website at lgbtqfundms.org.

New Stage Theatre Receives National Endowment for the Arts Grant

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Mary Anne Carter recently approved a $15,000 to New Stage Theatre for Singing of America’s Promise: New Stage Theatre’s full production of Ragtime as part of a series of more than $84 million in grants for the NEA's second major funding announcement for 2020.

For the Ragtime production, which New Stage will produce at a date that is yet to be determined, a release from the theater group says, New Stage will partner with statewide community organizations to provide access to underserved audiences. New Stage will also organize a series of events titled “America’s Promise: Conversations on Ragtime, Immigration, Race, Women’s Suffrage, Identity and the American Dream.” New Stage is also planning an upcoming concert titled “Roots of Ragtime: From New Orleans through Mississippi to St. Louis and New York City.”

For more information on the National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news. For more information on New Stage Theatre, call 601-948-3531 or visit newstagetheatre.com.