CLEVELAND, Ohio — Some restaurants and small businesses in Cleveland are getting help thanks to donations from KeyBank.

"It was really, really gratifying. Almost surreal in the aspect that we were able to, like, bring so many smiles to so many faces," said Jeremy Umanksy.

Umanksy owns Larder Delicatessen and Bakery in Cleveland. As a chef and influencer, he recently was part of a KeyBank campaign giving nearly $300,000 to restaurants and small businesses in 10 different cities.

"KeyBank Assists 2.0, it's a community activity we did to support small businesses especially restaurants and members of our community. So we worked with a local chef influencer, you guys know him as Jeremy Umansky and we worked with him to set off an opportunity to promote small restaurants in the Cleveland community," said Mark Knierim.

Umansky's restaurant was one of five in Cleveland that was chosen to hand out 50 $50 gift cards to their customers. This served as a way to thank the community while creating return business for the restaurants.

"Some people who are recurring customers of ours that are here all the time that, you know, we always say thank you to but it's so, so nice as an entrepreneur and a business person to be able to hand them something as a thank you to give back to them for all they've given to us," said Umanksy.

Knierim, the vice president of marketing for KeyBank, said Cleveland was chosen as one of the places to donate money to for two reasons. First, Cleveland is the home of KeyBank and second, because of the need.

"So we saw in Cleveland the need for helping the communities not only in Cleveland but surrounding suburbs and communities. We just see the need there that these small businesses especially restaurants really needed additional support,” Knierim said.

Not only did KeyBank donate to the restaurants, it also donated to the Cleveland Foodbank as well as an organization chosen by chef Umanksy.

"So, HFLA is the Hebrew Free Loan Association. They've been around for well over 100 years and what they do is they provide interest free loans to people in the community for various things. From needing it for an education to maybe a family emergency to starting its own business," said Umanksy. Knierim said the response from the community has been positive.

"We received a lot of great comments about it. People tweeted out about how wonderful it was," said Knierim.

Umanksy agreed.

"(A customer) comes in every afternoon and just gets some dessert. So, you know, she gets a two dollar to four dollars dessert so she was able to use her gift card for like a week and a half two weeks."

KeyBank officials said they hope to do this again in the future.