Many restaurants and charities have seen revenues drop thanks to pandemic restrictions. The Rotary Club of Huntsville Evening Satellite Club is giving residents the opportunity to support both at once, with a delicious meal delivered right to their door in support of a great local cause.
It’s called Rotary Eats and it works like this: each week in February, the club is partnering with a local restaurant to deliver orders to their patrons, with the minimum $20 delivery fee donated to a different charity each week.
“First we did a pilot through Tall Trees with delivery proceeds going to Community Living Huntsville,” said Jen Jerrett, Rotary Club of Huntsville Evening Satellite Club chair. Reflections of Muskoka, Wine Excellence, and Sutton Group Muskoka Realty matched donations, and more than $1,600 was raised in support of the organization.
“The delivery fee is $20 which the customer gets a full tax receipt for,” said Jerrett. “It may seem like a steep delivery charge, however your tip in the restaurant would be much higher and you wouldn’t get a [charitable]receipt.”
The club will deliver anywhere within a 15-minute drive of the restaurant and on each evening of the program will have a total of four volunteers each providing contactless delivery. Simply call the restaurant to place your food and beverage order, book your delivery timeslot, and pay for it all over the phone. The club appreciates orders placed in advance so that they can coordinate the volunteers.
Last week, deliveries from Kelsey’s on Feb. 4 and 5 supported Muskoka Seniors. This week, deliveries from That Little Place By The Lights on Feb. 9 and 12 support Chrysalis House.
In the coming weeks, deliveries from Main St. Local on Feb. 16 and 19 support The Door Youth Centre, and those from Westside Fish & Chips on February 23 and 26 support The Table Soup Kitchen Foundation.
“We thought it was a great win-win initiative,” said Jerrett. “Restaurants have been hit hard and with takeout the only method of revenue we thought we could help with that. Not to mention the fundraising component for the various charities in our community. They too have been hit hard. Most have had to cancel all of their annual fundraising events.”
The program will be reassessed in March and more details on that will be released soon. Follow the club on its social media channels on Facebook @peopleofactionhuntsville and Instagram @peopleofactionhuntsville for future updates.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Click here to support local news
Lesley Hastie says
Congratulations to this Rotary for putting such a great idea into practice and for the work of volunteer drivers to help both our local restaurants and charities. Thank you so much.
Judith Munroe says
Excellent initiative, Rotary Club. May it be successful and the restaurants and charities who so need our help get a bit of relief.
Linda Ann Jewell says
What a fantastic idea! Thank you to the Rotary Club.