Pipe Dream: CHOW will benefit from restaurant week

Success of Restaurant Week leads to plans for fall event


Originally Published 2010-04-27
By Gertrude Amoah


Binghamton’s first Restaurant Week raised nearly $2,000 for supplies and materials to benefit children’s programming at the Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton.


Restaurant Week took place from March 16 to 25 with participating restaurants including: Little Venice Restaurant, Kilmer Brasserie & Steakhouse, Lost Dog Café, Mad Moose Saloon, Sake Tumi, The Flan Club and Tranquil Bar & Bistro.


During this fundraising event, which was coordinated by city of Binghamton, each participating restaurant offered a special menu that included a three-course dinner for $20. Percentages of purchases of exhibited dishes were donated to the Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton.


“We are grateful … and we had a lot of fun working with all the people involved,” said Marybeth Smith, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton.


With the success of the first Restaurant Week, organizers have decided to hold the event twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. Each time, the Restaurant Week promotion will benefit a local non-profit.


The fall edition of the event will take place from Sept. 21 to 30, and will benefit the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW). In addition to the restaurants that were a part of the first Restaurant Week, organizers are seeking new participants.

According to Moshe Roberts, the Binghamton University volunteer coordinator for the Boys and Girls Club, the club in Binghamton currently operates at 11 after-school care sites and two before-school care sites in the Binghamton area that take in over 450 children on a daily basis.


In addition to their after-school programs, the Club operates a main unit on Clinton Street that serves as a soup kitchen. All the children that participate in after-school programs are provided with a hot dinner free of charge.


Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton Mentors, the on-campus, Student Association-chartered chapter of the national organization, has more than 200 active members, with more than 100 of them volunteering once or twice each week at one of the sites.

“The SA student group that volunteers at the club has also raised over $2,000 this year through the Casino Night, poker tournaments, date auction and bake sales,” Roberts said.

The Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton is holding its annual golf tournament on June 17 to raise money for a scholarship to send children to Camp Sertoma for a summer.


Camp Sertoma, located on 110 acres of woodland nine miles east of Binghamton, in the hills of Kirkwood, offers members of the Boys and Girls Club of Binghamton between ages 5 and 16 an opportunity to attend an overnight or day camp for the summer.

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