|
Valley restaurants, St. Vincent de Paul promote hunger awareness
By Rebecca Bostic, rbostic@catholicsun.org
May 15, 2008
With National Hunger Awareness Day coming up June 3, St. Vincent de Paul is teaming up with two Valley restaurants to promote hunger awareness and raise funds to feed the hungry.
Sweet Tomatoes and Chompie’s restaurants — sponsors of “Dine Out to Help Out” — committed to donating a portion of their proceeds on June 3 to St. Vincent de Paul.
Patrons who dine at any Sweet Tomatoes or Chompie’s location will be financially supporting St. Vincent de Paul’s daily fight against hunger.
“We want to give people an opportunity to really help St. Vincent de Paul because we feed a lot of people every single day,” said Susan de Queljoe of St. Vincent de Paul. The Catholic organization feeds the needy in their dining rooms and through delivery food boxes every day.
This is the fourth year of Dine Out to Help Out and the second year that Chompie’s has participated. The company is donating 15 percent of the proceeds from June 3 to St. Vincent de Paul. Chompie’s will also be serving breakfast to hundreds of hungry locals on June 2 at a St. Vincent de Paul dining room to kick off the event.
“There’s hungry people all over the world and the thought of hungry people in our backyard, that does not sit well, that’s not right,” said Wendy Borenstein Tucker, a co-owner and executive vice president of Chompie’s. “We need to make a difference and the Borenstein family feels very passionate about the cause.”
Sweet Tomatoes is participating for the first time this year.
“By partnering with St. Vincent de Paul on this event we are enabling our guests to feel the satisfaction of giving back to the community,” said Jenn Hepner, a spokesperson for Sweet Tomatoes.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with such a fabulous organization such as St. Vincent de Paul and are looking forward to helping them make this event a success,” she said.
Ultimately, de Queljoe hopes Dine Out to Help Out will help raise awareness of all types of people who go hungry, especially the many families that are currently struggling economically.
“Food is often the only thing in a family’s household budget that has any flexibility. You can always cut out buying groceries, but you have to pay the rent,” she said.
“We see lots of families come to our dining rooms because they can’t make ends meet,” de Queljoe added. “Hunger is a kind of invisible disease. It’s really important and I’m hoping that through doing this not only are we getting people to help, but they’re thinking about their neighbors and that there are hungry people right here in Phoenix.”
Chompie’s has three restaurants in the Valley that serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sweet Tomatoes has eight locations serving lunch and dinner.
|
