It’s time for Menu of Hope again! What is Menu of Hope, you ask? Well, here’s a FAQ. In sum, Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100,000 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry.

From December 15-24, food bloggers from all over the world will be offering food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle. You can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. Tickets cost $10 each, and you may buy as many tickets as you’d like for any one prize or for multiple prizes. At the end of the nine-day-long campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

You can learn about all the other East Coast prizes at Jaden’s East Coast USA regional listing, and I encourage you to bid on not only dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03), but many of the other prizes as well! They’re not only for a good cause; they’re just plain tasty, too.

As Pim explains:

Once again we’ve chosen to work with the UN World Food Programme. WFP is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

With the success of last year’s campaign to support the school lunch program in Lesotho, we are going to continue our support to the same program. During the duration of Menu for Hope V, we will be posting updates from the kids and the farmers we supported this past year.

If you weren’t around last year for Menu for Hope 4, let me explain a bit about why we are supporting this particular program. We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement – buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there.

Now, let’s get to the point; you want to know what I’m ready to put on the table. Well, here it is: Dave and I are offering dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03). We serve elaborate, multi-course meals at our exclusive restaurant once a month at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope (Brooklyn, NY, USA).

Dinner for two would normally cost $150, but we are offering it as a prize for the low low cost of $10 raffle tickets through Menu for Hope this year. Not only that, but we’ll add seats for you to any Jack dinner you like, even if it is listed as sold out on the website. Given that we’re already sold out for January 24, 2009 and almost sold out for February 21, 2009 already, and March is a special book release dinner, winning this prize may be the only way for you to get into Jack for dinner before April of next year!

So, go bid! You’ve got until Dec 24 to buy your tickets. Just go to the FirstGiving Menu For Hope site and follow the instructions (as described below). To be in the running to win dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant, you’ll need to enter the code ‘UE03′ in the ‘Personal Message’/'Your Comment’ section.

To Enter

If you’re interested in buying into the raffle, here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope at http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2008/12/menu-for-hope-2.html

2. Go to the donation site at http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope5 and make a donation.

3. Please specify which prize you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’/'Your Comment’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code. Of course, you all want dinner for two at Jack: an occasional restaurant (Prize # UE03), but don’t forget – you can buy as many raffle tickets as you want, for as many prizes as you want!

Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UE01 and 3 tickets for UE03. You’d write that as: 2xUE01, 3xUE03.

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we can claim the corporate match.

5. Please do NOT check the box that hides your email address from us. We need to be able to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Check back on Chez Pim after December 24th for the results of the raffle.

Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

Posted by Danielle in Food Blog Events, My Restaurant on December 15th, 2008 | 1 Comment » | Permalink