The 12th annual DineSmart campaign kicks off on the 10th November and restaurants and cafes are already signing up to be involved in this year’s event including the team at The Apollo, Sydney, pictured. The bulk of the $3.03 million raised and distributed to grassroots projects by StreetSmart since 2003 has been raised by restaurants and donated by their diners… that’s an amazing achievement. The organisations supported really struggle for funds, they are often just too small with too few resources to fundraise widely, so we have been here to help.
So How does it work? The beauty of DineSmart has been its simplicity. Restaurants and cafes ask their customers to add on a $2 donation to their table bill. In 2003 we asked for $2 and we still just ask for $2. It’s a micro donation that really adds up to change! StreetSmart support the restaurants with bill fold cards, posters etc and a PR campaign to ask diners to ‘Dine Out Help Out’.
How you can help: If you would like to see your local restaurant involved you can help us out by downloading this flier and handing it on to them. Ask them to consider being involved helping fund local community projects. You can down load a flier here.
Leading Brisbane restaurateur Andy Buchannan said:
“We are involved with Dine Smart because we like to support our selected group of charities & this concept of raising funds is ideally suited to the restaurant industry. The time of year it’s run (Christmas) is perfect timing. As we all indulge ourselves it makes us think about the others that aren’t so fortunate.
It’s one of a few charities we continue to support because of the difference this money makes to the people who really need it & are trying to turn their lives around. It’s about giving people a hand to get back into mainstream society through various smaller groups that might not get any charity or limited access to it.
It’s very easy to run this event. No one really hesitates to add $2 or even more in a lot of cases. It’s a small donation compared to what a lot of people have just spent.
Other restaurants should be involved. It’s not a hard process, almost all guests contribute, for just a few words at the end of their meal. You almost don’t even realise you are doing it after a few days, it becomes automatic.”
If you are a restaurants/café owner – you can find out more and sign up here.
