Money from Club Q GoFundMe to be shared with employees and performers Friday

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Club Q staff and entertainers will receive payments from an organized GoFundMe on Friday after a handful of them raised concerns that they haven’t been paid since the shooting from that specific fund meant for employees.

About a week after a gunman entered Club Q shooting and killing five and injuring several others, Matthew Haynes, the club’s founder, organized a GoFundMe to “ensure the Club Q staff and entertainers don’t suffer financial hardship due to this horrific act” and to “remodel Club Q.” 

The GoFundMe description goes on to state:

“The owners of Club Q will be responsible for allocating these funds. Employee and Entertainer funds will be released based on the percentage of hours worked. We intend to ensure employees and entertainers do not suffer any loss of income while we rebuild our space.

The remaining funds will go directly to an official Club Q memorial for the victims, remodeling and ensuring a safe space for the future.”

Haynes told 13 Investigates that the fundraiser is not for victims and that any relative who lost a family member in the shooting or anyone who was at the club during the shooting should go through the Colorado Healing Fund.

Hysteria Brooks has been a performer and producer at Club Q for about two years, running her own drag shows twice a month while also taking the stage herself. She along with other staff members haven’t received a cent from the more than $55,000 that has been raised. She said Haynes told the staff the money would be distributed once the donations started to slow.

"It's been now almost three months since the shooting and we still have yet to see any of those funds from that GoFundMe," Brooks said.

According to Haynes, the concerns come from a disgruntled few, and the payments to both staff and entertainers will be distributed Friday. He said direct employees of Club Q, like bartenders, will receive 1.5 times their monthly wage average between September and November of 2022. He said these funds will make up for anything not covered by unemployment.

The entertainers will receive three times their monthly wage average from when they performed at Club Q between September and November of 2022 for the last three months the club has been closed. Haynes said Club Q doesn’t directly hire entertainers. Instead, the club contracts with a company that provides them. But this means they aren’t eligible for unemployment, so entertainers will receive the full three-month payment, unlike Club Q employees, who only receive half.

Haynes said staff members and entertainers have received more money in the last three months from all the different fundraisers being organized, especially from the Colorado Healing Fund, than they would have if Club Q was still open.

"Club Q is grateful to so many in the community as our employees and contractors have been the beneficiaries of numerous additional direct payments from other fundraising efforts," Club Q's press release said. "It is with great pleasure we are now able to provide funds in addition to what many have already received, so that our community can continue to heal."

Brooks is a recipient of the Colorado Healing Fund and confirmed she has received more money from fundraisers than if she was working at Club Q. But she countered to say employees have new bills that are expensive.

"These people have new bills — they're seeing therapists now," Brooks said. "Some of them are still in physical therapy. Some of them have hospital bills that are astronomical."

In response to Haynes' process of distributing staff funds, a handful of Club Q employees requested the owner to give 75% of the GoFundMe donations to staff to be distributed amongst themselves.

Whatever funds remain after Friday's dispersement, Haynes said it will go toward the renovations of Club Q in the hopes to reopen this fall. The interior gutting of the existing Club Q building hasn't been set, but that will begin in April.

"It was 20 years ago that I fought through a very different time in our country to ensure our community would have a safe space to gather and commune," Haynes said in the press release. "It has been two decades now that we have kept the doors open as a place where everyone, regardless of gender identity or who they love, had somewhere to belong. To everyone who has asked me to reopen the club, I assure you we are working very hard to bring our home back. We look forward to being able to gather as one community again.”

The changes will include updated security measures, including screening technology and a hardened space, and a permanent vigil memorial to the five people who died during the tragic event. Initial design concepts are expected to be completed in the next four to six weeks, according to a press release.

"People come before buildings," Brooks said. "Matthew's focus should be on helping his staff and employees through this tragedy."