“Serving Up Relief Fundraiser” offers unique prizes to increase food equity

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - How would you like to win a dinner with Chris Long? What about taking over Citizen Burger on Super Bowl Sunday, or about Bodo’s Bagels every week for a full year? All of those are prizes up with the goal of increasing access to fresh, nutritious food for people in need.

Restaurant Week has been a staple in Charlottesville for years, and with the coronavirus pandemic, Cultivate Charlottesville and C-VILLE Weekly were faced with the possibility of scaling it back or not holding it entirely. Instead, they found a way to highlight local restaurants and still serve up some good in the community.

“Each year Restaurant Week has been a fundraiser,” Cultivate Charlottesville’s Aleen Carey said. “So they wanted to do something a little different and still appealed to the community to get involved with local issue.”

This year, that issue is Cultivate Charlottesville’s Food Equity Fund, a project attempting to increase access to fresh, nutritious food.

“From land so that people have the opportunity to grow their own food, to actual projects like the urban agriculture market days where folks in the neighborhoods are able to come get fresh produce for free,” Carey explained.

The event will be held in two separate, and very different, formats. One, an auction, will feature a rotating selection of items you can bid on, including dinner with Long, a former UVA football and NFL player. The auctions will be switched out every week with new prizes.

“Lampo Pizza is doing a pizza every day for a year. Keevil and Keevil is doing a backyard barbecue for you and 50 of your closest friends,” Carey added.

The other is a raffle, with multiple winners taking home $50 worth of Bodo’s every week for a year.

The Whiskey Jar, a regular Restaurant Week participant, is getting in on the action, too. The fundraiser will run until August 11.