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Do A Little Bit More: Dine Out. Dine In. Step Up to Fight Hunger.

By Put, the mastermind behind the A Little Bit More series.

Two chances to stretch a little in the department of culinary events this week.


From Flickr user burningkarma Thursday (tomorrow) is the annual fundraiser across the United States for AIDS service organizations called "Dining Out for Life." Started in 1991, this year restaurants from Fairbanks to Tampa Bay will donate a portion of their receipts on Thursday to local organizations working with people with AIDS. If an excuse to dine out is your cup of tea, you can probably find a participating restaurant near you by checking the website at http://www.diningoutforlife.com. And, of course, if there doesn't happen to be a spot near you that's included among the 3,500 participants, you could always just find a local organization that's engaged in that work and make a donation—say equal to the amount of your tip—and give them a happy surprise as well.

On Saturday, "Dine to Make a Difference" invites you to have a dinner with friends around someone's table and put together a donation equal to what you might have spent in a restaurant. The idea is to send the money to an organization fighting hunger – a cruel condition affecting more than 900 million of our fellow residents on this globe. Dine to
Make a Difference recommends a contribution to: the Heifer Project (http://www.heifer.org), Bead For Life (http://www.beadforlife.org), the Hunger Project (http://www.thp.org), Feeding America (http://www.feedingamerica.org), Share Our Strength (http://www.strength.org), or Freedom From Hunger (http://www.freedomfromhunger.org). Of course, the goal of the project will be met if you and your friends make a contribution to any organization that's fighting hunger – whether it's down the block from you or halfway around the world.

There are direct service opportunities to address the pain of hunger in other ways as well. Right now on Idealist there are more than 900 volunteer opportunities related to hunger. Some would take a big chunk of time and commitment; others would ask you to do just a little bit more. And right now, of course, the challenges facing our neighbors and people in every part of the world call out for just a little bit more - more efforts, more generosity, more creativity.