On April 19th, Dining Out for Life is coming to Philadelphia. The program partners with different restaurants to donate a portion of the proceeds of your meal to a local HIV/AIDS organization. Philly is the one of over 60 cities that offer the program and it actually originated here in 1991 by Action Wellness, formerly ActionAIDS, which is a local Philadelphia charity. Action Wellness helps with housing and medical needs as well as other social services for those living with HIV.
“We have been doing this for the three last years,” says Jessie Harris, the Director of Retail Operations, “I think that it’s important to raise funds and awareness for AIDS.”
To kickoff the week, there was a food truck festival on the 1300th block of Locust on Saturday, April 14th. This pop–up festival included trucks like Foolish Waffles (which was just voted one of the best food trucks in the city) and The Tot Cart, which offers just that: tater tots. The pop–up also includes a beer garden from Yards Brewery and is serving up an IPA just for Action Wellness, dubbed the Action IPA. While it would have been a great way to get off of campus this weekend, you probably didn't hear about it over the excitement of Spring Fling. But it is not too late to make it to the main event.
The main event will take place on Thursday, April 19th, with 33% of all of the restaurant profits going to Action Wellness. This years participating restaurants include some of Philadelphia’s top venues. This includes some of our University City favorites such as Pod, Schmear It, and CO/OP as well as some of the most well known restaurants in the city. If you still need to go on a spring date, Sampan is a fan favorite as well as Tria if you want to sit outside and drink wine. Metropolitan Cafe (the one in Rittenhouse) is participating this year, offering the promotion at their eat–in cafe, which they just redid to include oven–fired pizzas.
There are so many restaurants on the list, that you are going to have to check it out for yourself to see if you have an excuse to go to one of your favorite places. Let's hope that it is, because this is the perfect opportunity to treat yourself right before finals.
