Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) has launched its first national fundraising campaign, “Restaurants for Change.”
On Oct. 22, 25 restaurants in nine cities across Canada will donate the proceeds from their dinner service to CFCC. The event aims to raise awareness of the need for a “healthy and equitable food system,” according to CFCC, which was founded in 2012 and provides resources to community food centres. Proceeds from the event will be split between CFCC’s national leadership work and local community food centres in participating cities.
The idea was born after Toronto’s Richmond Station donated proceeds of an evening’s dinner service to the Regent Park Community Centre. “It was just an amazing show of generosity and support and wanting to make an impact in their neighbourhood,” said Christina Palassio, director of communications at CFCC.
“From there, we started talking about how can we involve more restaurants across the country in supporting this work. We know that chefs can be terrific advocates of different causes, including increasing access to healthy good and promoting food skills through food education and engagement. So, we started talking to [other chefs and restaurant owners], there was lots of enthusiasm and excitement about it, and it just grew from there.”
To promote the event, CFCC launched a national multimedia marketing campaign, including a PSA featuring participating chef Carl Heinrich of Richmond Station and Nick Saul, president and CEO of CFCC, who also founded Toronto’s The Stop Community Food Centre, CFCC’s founding partner. The spot was created by Toronto design firm Dot Dot Dash in collaboration with The Food Network and will air throughout October.
Dot Dot Dash also created the Restaurants for Change logo, a dedicated website in English and French, sponsorship materials and printed collateral materials.
“We really spent some time thinking about and looking at the CFCC’s model, which is this notion of evolving the current food system and actually trying to change something,” said Blaine van Bruggen, partner at Dot Dot Dash. “We wanted to make sure that the creative was very open and accessible and had that sense of being handmade, while using bold, powerful colours to grab people’s attention.”
On the PR front, CFCC hired The Siren Group to manage media and stakeholder relations, special events, sponsorship and social media activity. The Restaurants for Change initiative kicks off with a media event on Oct. 7 in Toronto. The event will feature remarks by event chair James Chatto, and CFCC’s Saul. The Siren Group is targeting media outlets ranging from mainstream print publications, to broadcast television and radio, to bloggers.
“The call to action for Canadians is just to book a dinner at one of the participating restaurants on Oct. 22,” said Susan Willemsen, president of The Siren Group. “The food community is a very tight community, so when there’s a call to action, everyone is typically very supportive.”
The campaign will be also supported on various social media channels including Facebook; Twitter @aplaceforfood, #foodforgood; Instagram @aplaceforfood; Vimeo and YouTube.
“Certainly we want to reach diners who love and support the [participating] restaurants, but we also want to reach new folks through all of our marketing and PR efforts,” said Palassio.
