H-E-B won a decisive victory over Blue Bell ice cream in the finals of Texas Monthly’s competition. Credit: Courtesy of H-E-B

With its employees scrambling to keep up with surging shoppers and pickup orders during the pandemic, San Antonio-based grocery chain H-E-B says it’s giving many of them $2-per-hour raises.

All hourly store, manufacturing, warehouse and transportation employees will receive the pay boost effective March 16 through April 12th to recognize their work, the company announced Friday via Facebook.

H-E-B, one of Texas’ dominant grocers, has been adding short-term workers to help with increased demand, and the pay boost is likely to give added incentive for existing staff to stick around through the crisis.

“Texans rely on H-E-B and we rely on our great Partners. We understand it is our responsibility to provide essential services to our customers during a time when so many other businesses have not been able to stay open or have had to scale back operations significantly,” the company said in its post. “H-E-B Partners come together during times of crisis to take care of each other and our Customers. This is the Spirit of H-E-B.”

Earlier this week, H-E-B announced that it had delivered a trailer of food to the Central Texas Food Bank. That donation follows a $1.2 million gift to the aid organization Feeding Texas.

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Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...