Restaurants for Relief 2: August 29

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Mark your calendars for Tuesday, August 29, 2006, to eat out at restaurants participating in Restaurants for Relief 2, to mark the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Much more needs to be done to help people rebuild their lives and help restore New Orleans' great restaurant heritage. According to Share Our Strength (SOS), over 1,500 restaurants are participating, with more joining everyday. That is almost double last year's fundraiser. SOS allows individual restaurants to decide how much they earmark for donations. Some restaurants are giving 10% of the evening's revenue, others as high as 100%. Of the funds raised, 100% will go to support community grantees, specifically food banks in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. Rachel Sobelson, Program Manager at SOS, told Superchefblog: 25% of the money goes directly toward programs helping restaurant workers affected by the storms; 50% of the money goes to other grantees involved in the Gulf Coast recovery; 25% goes toward our Childhood Hunger Strategy and the overhead costs associated with our Gulf Coast recovery efforts. While we cannot commit to specific grants or grantees before the funds are raised, we are researching a variety of programs for restaurant workers including efforts geared toward health care and housing access, programs that provide additional financing or grant funds for local restaurants, workforce training and job placement initiatives, and ideas that come directly from the LA, MS and AL Restaurant Associations. Last year's Restaurants for Relief dine-out program, combined with other efforts, raised more than $1.2 million in critical funding that supported schools, community kitchens, feeding programs, farmers’ markets, FEMA trailer parks and efforts to aid restaurant and hospitality workers. SOS, American Express in partnership with the Food Network and the National Restaurant Association, have organized this event. Super chefs participating include: Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken at Border Grill (Santa Monica), Border Grill (Las Vegas), and Ciudad Alain Ducasse at Alain Ducasse at the Essex House Thomas Keller at Bouchon and per se Nobu Matsuhisa at Nobu, Nobu Next Door, and Nobu Fifty Seven Todd English at Olives Boston, Olives New York, and Olives Washington Charlie Palmer at Aureole, Metrazur, and Kitchen 22 Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Jean-Georges, Jo Jo, Mercer Kitchen, Vong, 66, Spice Market, and Perry Street, How do diners participate? Just enter a zipcode to find locally participating restaurants. If you can't make dinner, you can still make a donation or buy a gift certificate. Eat out for a good cause on Tuesday, August 29th. Related news and sources: PBS News Hour Katrina CNN Katrina Wikipedia Katrina First.Gov Hurrican Katrina Recovery NOAA Katrina WBKO Toledo Blade Kansas City Star Miami Herald Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Portsmoth Herald Sacramento Bee Washington Post New York Magazine Detroit News Boston Magazine Previous articles: [Hurricane Katrina - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to superchefblog