Vimala Rajendran is the owner and chef of Vimala’s Curryblossom Café on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

And a crowd gathered in the courtyard outside the restaurant on Wednesday as Chase delivered a $100,000 grant to Vimala’s.

“I am so humbled. It is just so amazing,” Rajendran says. “The mayor of Chapel Hill said [Wednesday] there is no one more deserving in the entire city of Chapel Hill than me, but I just feel like it was a super surprise. [I] had no idea.”

Chase representative Brent Gore was at Vimala’s as part of the celebration, and he says Vimala’s was one of 20 nationwide recipients of a grant through Chase’s Mission Main Street Grant Program out of more than 30,000 applicants.

“What Vimala’s doing here through her work in the community is exactly the kind of thing that Chase is looking to celebrate and support,” he says. “We were really pleased to get her application and be able to give her this grant.

“We’re just looking forward to seeing her do a lot of great things in the community.”

Vimala says she feels a lot of emotion beyond the initial shock.

“Not just the surprise and great level of insurmountable joy, but also a sense of responsibility that this community that put us in business is here for us [and] will be here for us,” she says. “[Wednesday] when I spoke to the crowd gathered in the courtyard I just said, ‘thank you for the hope you have given us today.’”

Vimila’s opened in 2010 and has garnered attention for its “Vimala Cooks, Everybody Eats” program, where patrons who cannot afford a meal can still eat thanks to the generosity of other patrons who have the resources to give a little extra. Vimala’s has also been recognized for paying all of the employees a living wage.

Rajendran says this grant money will go toward furthering the restaurant’s mission.

“[We’ll] utilize some of that money for further advancing our mission to feed those who cannot pay,” she says, “as well as do some writing to document the story. Because it has been a phenomenal and unique story of creative resiliency that myself and my family have gone through.”

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