Eating Charitably: Ways to Donate While You Dine

A quick search of the internet will reveal hundreds of food-based schemes allowing people to taste the good life while giving something to a worthwhile charitable cause.  Here are just a few US and UK-based options.

Non-profit Restaurants

Two restaurants in the US that are pioneering a completely different business model for both serving great food and directly helping local people are So All May Eat (SAME) Cafe (Denver, Colorado) and One World Everybody Eats (at the One World Cafe in Salt Lake City).

The SAME Cafe’s menu has no prices on it.  Instead, customers are invited to choose whatever they want and then pay what they consider to be an appropriate price for their meal, leaving their money in a sealed envelope.  Customers who can’t afford to pay anything are asked to volunteer in the restaurant for one hour.  The founders, Brad and Libby Birky, envisioned the SAME Cafe as a sort of alternative soup kitchen, where the food would be so good that even those who had money would want to eat there, covering the cost of those who needed free food.  Perhaps surprisingly, most people respect the system, and when the takings are added up, the restaurant receives on average $1 above the cost price for each meal.

Image via Wikipedia

One World Everybody Eats works on a similar principle, with the addition of a staple dish of dhal and rice for those who are neither able to pay nor volunteer for their food.  The food is all organic and selected on the basis of what is in season and available at a low cost.  OWEE have big plans to open branches in other US cities, including New York and Chicago.

Charitable Food Gifts

There are many online options for those who want to send a great, tasty holiday gift, and do their bit for a charitable cause at the same time. Be careful though – some of these look so good that you might have a hard time giving them away.

American homeless charity HELP USA also runs HELP Comfort Foods – a catalogue of speciality sweets including the increasingly famous ‘Salty Turtles’.  The sweet treats are provided by Choco-Logo in Buffalo, and the orders are processed and packed by HELP USA employees who were formerly homeless.  They have a great range of scrumptious chocolatey treats.

Image via Wikipedia

Cookies for Kids Cancer was started by a Mom who wanted to raise money for research into her own son’s rare cancer and has now become a nationwide concept in the US.  The delicious cookies would be perfect for a gift, although anyone would be excused for just keeping them all to themselves.  70% of the purchase price of the cookies goes directly to fund paediatric cancer research.

Restaurant Charity Schemes

International charity Action Against Hunger partners with restaurants around the world in a scheme called Restaurants Against Hunger.  Participating restaurants raise money through a variety of methods including donating a percentage of earnings from designated dishes, taking donations direct from customers and organising one-off fundraising events.  Find out more about this year’s UK campaign and participating restaurants at the official Restaurants Against Hunger website.  Action Against Hunger also partners restaurants in the USA, Canada, France and Spain.

Street Smart has become established as a major restaurant-based fundraising event in the UK over the past ten years.  Throughout November and December, participating restaurants (550 in 2008) add a voluntary £1 donation to each bill, every penny of which is distributed to charitable groups helping the homeless.  To find participating restaurants, visit Street Smart’s official website.

That’s just a taste of what’s available in the world of food-based charitable giving.  Maybe now you’ll feel inspired to search the internet for yourselves and find out what’s available in your area.

Enjoy your meal!