Georgia bar pays unemployed staff with dollar bills stapled to walls

April 9 (UPI) -- A Georgia bar owner said a tradition of customers stapling dollar bills to the business' walls is allowing her to distribute $3,714 to her now out-of-work staff.

Jennifer Knox, owner of The Sand Bar in Tybee Island, said customers have been writing their names and other messages on dollar bills and stapling them to the walls inside the bar for the past 15 years.

Knox said she was inside the empty bar in March after the business closed due to coronavirus lockdown measures when she came up with a way to help her now unemployed staff.

"We were sitting there doors locked and I'm like 'oh my gosh, there's money on the walls and we have time on our hands,'" Knox told CNN. "'We gotta get this money down.'"

She said it took three days to remove all the bills.

Knox said she was able to collect $3,714 from the walls, and customers who heard about her efforts to help her employees offered donations that brought the total amount to $4,104.

She said donations are still coming in from the public.

"We all look out for each other," she said. "We are all in this together."