Food.Fun.Stuff: Martin Luther King, Jr.- The Day of Service

Around the country, service is all the buzz today and rightfully so as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK is such a day of reflection and its timing is perfect this year with last weeks disaster in Haiti. Service is not only needed on an voluntary basis but on an involuntary basis. One of our fave restaurant groups is doing its part in the Haiti relief efforts with fundraisers and daily menu items offered with 100% of the proceeds going to the Red Cross. The Neighborhood Restaurant Group (*You know the family: Tallula, Buzz Bakery, etc.) has identified different menu items, wines and beers at each one of their restaurants and proceeds from the sales of these selections will be donated to Red Cross and the Haitian Emergency Rebuilding Operation (H.E.R.O). Customers can easily find these items because they will be marked with a red cross on the restaurants' menus.

NRG will also be hosting a fundraiser on Wednesday, January 20, 2009 from 6 pm-9 pm alongside a former employee and his wife who survived the earthquake.* They're requesting a $40 donation per guest and will serve complimentary hors d'oeuvres at the benefit with all proceeds going to H.E.R.O.

With the efforts of NRG, you can turn this week into a week of service instead of a day of service. Today go out and do something good for a cause, this is the message Dr. King preached until he took his very last breath, don't let the legacy be left in vain!



*Frank Thorp V, an American aid worker, was in the mountains 100 miles away from Port-au-Prince when the earthquake struck, and at first he didn’t realize how serious it was. But then he learned that it had leveled the Haitian capital and that his wife, Jillian, was trapped in the wreckage of a building. He departed to the city immediately, and after nearly 10 hours pinned beneath the rubble, Frank pulled Jillian from the pile of concrete, bricks and wood that had been the Mission House for the Haitian Ministries. She survived with miraculously minor injuries.

Frank was a member of the Rustico service team before striking out on his career in communications alongside wife Jillian. In August 2009, Jillian moved to Haiti to begin working full-time Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, a U.S. based humanitarian aid organization. In January 2010, Frank moved down to Haiti to be with Jillian.