SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. — When a tour manager saw how hard his former crew members were struggling through unemployment, he teamed with his partner to start a foundation called the Touring Professionals Alliance.

Every week, they offer free meals to crew members at two locations in Los Angeles. Between the people behind the scenes and the cameras, a bond was formed.

The Touring Professionals Alliance is a group of crew members, production managers, tour managers and more. They are the production staff that get the show on the road.

To Dakota Gartner, they are family.

"It speaks so much to what our industry is," said Gartner. "We are all a family at the end of the day. It’s all about us paying it forward, and I think all of us who are in this position are trying to do anything that we can to make that still happen."

It has been nearly a year that everyone in Gartner’s production family has been out of a job. The last gig he was scheduled to work was Coachella back in April. When one of the largest music festivals in the world was canceled, Gartner knew it wasn't a good sign.

“Since then, unfortunately in events, there’s been no work at all," he said. "Music in general has just been, the entertainment industries are really suffering and having to deal with a lot during this time."

Jerome Crooks saw the suffering firsthand and joined with his partner to help lighten the load. The tour manager is accustomed to traveling the world with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and the Beastie Boys, but these days he’s taking his talents to help lift up his industry.

He formed the Touring Professionals Alliance, a foundation to provide crew members the information, financial aid, and mental health resources they need to endure the pandemic.

They have collaborated with the Lee Initiative to take it one step further by offering free meals from some of the nation’s leading chefs.

“If we can give people a meal now, they can take the money that they would have had or used for the meal tonight and put it towards something else, put it towards their bills," Crooks said.

According to Crooks, the partnership has fed 400 crew members in Los Angeles every week since December, and another 200 meals are distributed weekly in Nashville, Chicago, and New York.

There are no plans to slow down the initiative anytime soon — even after tours resume post-pandemic.

“With this industry, we know that it’s going take time for us to get back on the road," said Crooks. "My guess is, once everyone gets the vaccine, we’ll probably only see 15% of the tours on the road because you’re also competing with the NBA and hockey."

Gartner describes this uncertain future as unsettling but is determined not to be too discouraged.

“I hope that this moment in time makes it so that people recognize the things that we took for advantage before, whether it’s a meal or just simply looking someone in the eyes and saying hello, and showing some compassion."

For more information on how to get meals or donate, visit here.