On Friday, more than 150 restaurants are joining forces on a nationwide fundraiser for World Food Day, celebrated Oct. 16, to benefit Puerto Rico and Haiti. Tampa’s Ciccio Restaurant Group is getting in on the cause, too, alongside eateries in food destinations like New Orleans, D.C. and Chicago and well-known chefs like José Andrés, Alice Waters and Mario Batali.
The World Food Day collaboration is an annual tradition for World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit founded by Andrés after that catastrophic earthquake impacted Haiti in 2010. This year, the participating restaurants — including all CRG locations (that’s Green Lemon, The Lodge, Fresh Kitchen, Ciccio Water, Ciccio Cali, Daily Eats and betterBYRD), luckily for Bay area locals — will donate 10 percent of their proceeds to support a new culinary school in Haiti, plus Puerto Rico relief efforts post-Hurricane Maria, which hit Sept. 20.
World Central Kitchen is setting up kitchens throughout eight locations in Puerto Rico to feed and deliver meals to residents displaced by the devastating storm. Andres, who’s spent time on the island in the wake of the hurricane, and his organization had served 50,000 meals as of Oct. 2. Check out one of the many Twitter updates he's posted on the ground with #ChefsForPuertoRico, an ongoing hashtag:
Quick report from #PuertoRico: We relocated our main kitchen to the Coliseo where we can greatly expand meals we serve!! #ChefsForPuertoRico pic.twitter.com/kfUv0mr9bN
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) October 3, 2017
This article appears in Oct 5-12, 2017.