The Dine Out Road Trip
Posted by Matt Creer and Mindi Cabe on Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Everyone has a strength to share in the global fight against hunger and poverty, and in these shared strengths lie sustainable solutions.
Simple. Daunting. And true, so very true. It’s so easy to lose ourselves in the enormity of the world and dismiss our contributions as too minute to make any real difference. I mean, think about it — if you saw a hungry child on the side of the street and gave him a sandwich and watched him devour it, you would feel an immediate sense of making a big difference — for that child for that meal — and to him or her, in that moment, you may as well be the whole damn world.
There are hungry children out there, too many to tolerate, and their proximity to a helping hand is not such that we can afford to indulge ourselves in restricting our efforts to areas in which we can see their benefits directly. To effectively help these kids, we have to join together and act as a team, each member knowing there are many others battling the same adversary, and each content, no matter how removed or abstract it seems, that every dollar they spend is absolutely making a big difference to one child for one meal, somewhere.
Inspired by a public service announcement posted on SOS’s YouTube channel, in which Food Network’s Guy Fieri says, “Make it your job to visit as many restaurants as you can during the Great American Dine Out,” we decided our contribution to the team would be to visit every participating restaurant in our home state of Colorado.
We hoped to use our internet marketing expertise to help spread the word about Share Our Strength’s mission to end childhood hunger in America, and to help generate donations to a cause in which we strongly believe. And as often happens when undertaking such a journey, we found ourselves learning many valuable lessons along the way. Some were poignant, some were quite trying, and all were well worth the considerable effort of carting three of our respective children around the state for a week.
First and foremost, there SO many people out there in need of some help. Yes, okay, we all already know that. However, that number has grown, since the economic downturn, much higher than either of us had realized. Most of us have grown accustomed (if not downright desensitized) to the solitary form we all too often see on intersection corners, sign in hand.
But while donating some of the food we had purchased during the Dine Out week to the Denver Rescue Mission, we saw hundreds — hundreds! — of people huddled outside awaiting their chance for a single night’s worth of sustenance and shelter. It became very obvious very quickly that now, probably more than at any time in the last 50 years, is the time for us all to band together and contribute.
The good news — for every person we encountered that needed a helping hand, there was another anxious to offer it. The good folks working at the restaurants we visited were excited for the opportunity to assist a worthy cause; the people of SOS’s Operation Frontline Colorado office were very supportive; and the staff at the Food Bank of the Rockies went out of their way to help us deliver our excess food to the proper door. And we were greatly humbled and awestruck, too, by the volunteers at the Denver Rescue Mission, who managed to remain positive and helpful in the face of their arduous undertaking, and completely inspired by Brad & Libby Birky, co-founders of So All May Eat (SAME) Cafe, who devote themselves every single day to making nutritious, organic food available to everyone regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Perhaps, in the absence of the immediate gratification found in helping someone face-to-face, this is the source we all need to draw our strength and inspiration from — the amazing people we meet when we make that decision — that all-important, first step of decision — to do what we can to help.
Rewarding. Demanding. Surprising. Frustrating. Fulfilling. Fun. These are just some of words that come to mind when remembering our week-long adventure. Was it tough? Sure. Were there setbacks? Yep. Do we often ask questions we answer ourselves? Almost never.
Okay, just one more: Would we do it again? Oh yes, we would do it again, we would do it again in a heartbeat. And we will…
October 6, 2009 | | Tags: dining, get involved, Great American Dine Out
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